The Argonauts
by Eliot Rosewater
Summary: The story of Captain America and his Howling Commandos from "they're all idiots" to "to the captain."
1. Prologue

**NOTE: This is an updated and edited version of a previously posted story with the same title.**

* * *

The ropes of a pulley were banging against a flagpole when Peggy Carter emerged from intelligence headquarters. Hours in front of maps and reports so fresh the inky, stamped letters were smudged in places had robbed her of her ability to gauge time. It was that indiscernible time of night where one couldn't tell if the sun had just gone down or was about to rise again. Under normal circumstances, she'd never have let herself lose track of time. Peggy hadn't remembered to put her watch back on her wrist since taking it off for a self-appointed mission in which a reflection off of its components could have proven disastrous. There'd been much more pressing matters at hand.

Speaking of…

Cold and damp November clung to Peggy's hair as she set off into the sleepy camp, muddy footprints recording her progress. The base was as morose and tired as it had been when she'd arrived just days before. One might expect a rollicking good time, a celebration of the estimated 400 men returned to the Allies overnight; contraband should have been on full display, drinking, laughing, complete strangers hugging like brothers reunited.

Peggy had seen the type of thing before, but this camp was nothing like that. After the applause and shouting when the men had first arrived, led by Captain America, cartoon come to life, the men had become quite sombre again. They were tired, Peggy knew. The survivors of the prison camp were tired, and the men who had been here before were tired. From what Peggy had heard, nearly half the survivors of the labour camp were in bad shape and needed some form of medical attention. A good portion of those beds were already occupied by troops from the other units. The colonel had already issued an order to prepare room at a hospital in London and to move the survivors out of Italy at the earliest opportunity.

Meeting no one along the way to the aid station, Peggy shouldered her way inside. The floor was covered in bunks and improvised beds. Low lamps casted a glow over the sea of olive drab man-shaped lumps. It was as quiet in here as it was outside: a few murmurs among the patients who were still awake and rain beginning to plunk overhead. Peggy moved carefully between the rows with her head high. Red Cross nurses stretched their lips in an attempt at a smile if they caught her eye; otherwise they kept their heads down and went about their work.

Beyond a few makeshift walls, all the way in the back, Peggy was confident that she'd found what she sought. The reports said he'd been quarantined from the others, and there was no proper quarantine to be had out in the field beyond the canvas screens blocking the last bed from all the others.

Perhaps she'd been too eager or was properly exhausted, but Peggy didn't hear the voice speaking on the other side of the screen until she had already slipped between a gap and was inside the partition.

"Oh," she said, and the voice stopped.

A rather gruff-looking man was staring up at her from a wooden chair, his well-worn boots propped up on the end of a bunk. Another man was lying, apparently asleep, on his side on the bunk with his back to her, barely visible under a suspicious number of blankets. From the looks of it, the man in the chair was just as surprised to see her as she was to see him. It struck Peggy that he had the pinched look of someone who had lost a lot of weight in a short amount of time. There was a book in the seated man's hands, from which he had, presumably, just been reading aloud; Peggy could see several scribbled notes among the print.

She'd been expecting Steve.

"Pardon me," Peggy said. "I'll just—"

"Who's there?" mumbled the man on the bunk.

Both Peggy and the man with the book looked at the one on the bed.

"'S nothin', Sarge, just a—" the seated man took in her uniform with a gaze that was not unfriendly or indecent "—just a runner from HQ."

The man on the bed turned just enough so he could squint up at her with glassy eyes. Peggy was sure he couldn't actually see her, but he turned back over toward his companion and let out a forced exhale. "'M fine."

"I know," said the other.

"I didn't mean to intrude. I really should be go—" Peggy began.

"Lookin' for Rogers?" said the gruff one.

"Actually, I was."

He nodded. "Said he'd be back," the man checked a pocket watch open on a makeshift bedside table, "in T-minus fifteen minutes, if you wanna wait."

Deciding it would be a wasted opportunity to do otherwise, Peggy said, "I suppose I _will_ wait."

The seated man stood and offered her his seat. He pulled a metal pail from under the head of the bunk, turned it upside down, and sat on the bottom. Holding out a hand toward her, he said, "Timothy Dugan. Friends call me Tim. And this big lump is Sergeant Barnes."

She shook his hand and took her seat. "Agent Carter."

"Agent, huh?"

She gave him a smile that was a touch brittle.

"Sorry about the runner bit," Dugan said. "I was going to say you were a nurse or one of them USO broads, but I thought he might try to stand up and be proper." His eyes were on his sleeping companion.

"I won't take it personally."

Dugan marked the page of the book he was holding (something from Agatha Christie) and set it on the side table beside a bowler hat. He said to her, "Agent of what, if you don't mind me asking? I'm a corporal in the 107th myself."

Deciding she didn't want to lie outright to him, Peggy said, "I think I do mind."

"Ah, one of them, huh?" Dugan didn't look amused. "You know that I spent God-knows-how-long in a factory building weapons that shoot blue light and vaporise people? A guy callin' himself Captain America — who I am _convinced_ was an act of divine intervention — turned up and busted us out. Agent Carter, nothing surprises me anymore."

"What are you driving at?" she asked, amused and interested.

Dugan sat back on his bucket and shrugged. "I'm just saying I know both our guys and the bad guys have been getting up to no good."

"You think I'm up to no good?"

"You might be." Dugan shrugged as if it was no matter to him. "I'm no saint myself. Between you and me, Agent Carter, I didn't kill a man for the first time on a battlefield."

"Nor did I." Peggy could tell immediately that she'd scored a point on him then.

In a lower voice, Dugan said, "My sergeant was tied down and used as a human experiment. That doesn't sit right with me."

Peggy supposed that was meant to sound threatening.

He continued, "Not saying I know what all those Germans were doing in that factory, but I'm not _that_ stupid to think our side doesn't have a little of the same thing."

"Corporal, Steve Rogers was never forced onto an exam table and his insides made into playthings."

"That what the reports say?"

"Yes. He'll tell you himself nothing happened to him that he did not agree to have done."

"Did he write the reports?"

She was beginning to quite like this Dugan. He could hold an interesting conversation. Unsure where this was going and rather interested, Peggy said, "No, he didn't."

"Reports tell you what happened, but they don't tell you the story," Dugan said as his eyes drifted toward Sergeant Barnes. "We ought to be able to choose who tells our stories."

There was a pause. Then Dugan spoke again, his eyes on Peggy and a grin cracking his face, "Like I said, I'm choosing to believe that Captain America was an act of divine intervention. So whatever secret division you work for, if they keep _this_ —" he jerked his head toward Barnes "—from ever happening again, you're alright in my book."

"The lesser of two evils, am I?"

Whether she was or not, Peggy didn't find out. A new body appeared in the gap of the partition, and it was not Steve returned as Dugan had said. It was a regular Army officer.

Dugan jumped to his feet and saluted. "Lieutenant Springer—oh! _Captain_ Springer!"

The man called Springer smiled genuinely at Dugan and returned salute. "Corporal! Can't say I ever expected to see you again, but I sure am pleased!" He looked as if he'd rather like to embrace Dugan but held himself back. The two shook hands.

"Congratulations on the promotion, sir," Dugan said.

"Thanks. But I think they actually ran out of bodies and had to start promoting everyone." Springer looked around the space. "How're you though? No wounds?"

"No, sir. I'm doing just fine."

Used to being overlooked by regular Army men, Peggy watched their conversation patiently. Steve should be returning soon, if Dugan was correct about the time.

Springer said, "And Barnes?" His eyes drifted to the sergeant who hadn't so much as snored at the new addition to his bedside party. "You wouldn't believe the rumours going around about him. If half of them are true…" The captain trailed off when he saw Dugan nodding.

"I'm not sure what all they're saying, sir, but they're not entirely wrong."

"Christ almighty. How's he been?" The sincerity in this newly minted captain caught Peggy's attention. It would make him popular among his subordinates but it could be a disaster if he allowed himself to become too attached.

Dugan shrugged. "He got through the worst of it on the march back here, sir. He's mostly just tired, like the rest of us. A few square meals and a lot of rest, and he'll be alright."

"Good, good," Springer said. Concern lingered on his face. "Keep an eye on him, will you, Corporal? If Barnes isn't getting something he needs, send a runner to me. I'll make something happen."

At last Steve arrived through the gap in the curtains. The makeshift quarantine was growing very crowded now. Peggy caught his eye and gave a wave of greeting. His acknowledgement was a look of mild confusion.

"Yes, sir, I'll do that," Dugan said.

"Right," said Springer. He looked on the edge of saying his thanks before he remembered an officer does not thank those ranked below him for following orders.

"Captain Springer," Dugan said while nodding to Steve, "this is the man you can thank for getting us out of there."

"Steve Rogers," Steve said to the captain. They shook hands.

"John Springer."

Dugan added, "Captain Springer is my and Jimmy's superior officer, led us since boot camp. After his promotion, looks like he's our new CO."

Steve and Springer did not exchange salutes, which Peggy knew spoke volumes. Springer did not think Steve was a proper member of the military. For Steve, anyone who was in command when his closest friend was taken prisoner was not worthy of a salute. A bit of a harsh judgement, she thought.

"I can't thank you enough for bringing those men back," Springer said earnestly. He nodded to Barnes. "And particularly for getting me my best sergeant back. We've had to promote Hodge in his absence. It's been a nightmare." This last bit was directed at Dugan, but Peggy and Steve exchanged a look of their own.

Breaking off his look with Peggy, Steve gave Springer an inscrutable smile. "I couldn't leave those men as prisoners after I knew they were there."

Again, Peggy thought that was harsh.

"Right," Springer said again. Cottoning on at last. "Corporal, I'll come back at a more decent hour, see how you two are holding up. Send a runner if you need to. You're sure _you're_ doing alright after all this?"

"Yes, sir."

Captain and corporal exchanged another salute, Springer nodded in acknowledgement to Steve, said "ma'am" to Peggy, and disappeared.

"Good man, Springer," Dugan said to no one in particular. He resumed his heat on the upturned bucket. To Steve: "Oh, there's an Agent Carter here to see you."

"I noticed," Steve said.

Peggy stood. "Yes, I'd like to have a word with you. Perhaps we should take a step away though. I'd hate to disturb the soldiers' recovery."

For a moment Steve looked torn between consenting to the conversation and staying to watch his friend sleep.

"Aw, go on," Dugan said. "Jimmy ain't goin' nowhere."

"Everything been OK since I left?" Steve said.

"Hardly made a peep since things settled down. Look, he's not even sweating anymore!"

True: What Peggy could see of Barnes's skin was definitely not sweaty.

Lack of perspiration was apparently enough to convince Steve as well. He pulled an envelope from a pocket and handed it to Dugan. "If he wakes up again, try reading him this."

Dugan dropped the envelope on the side table and took up the book instead. "Yeah, maybe later. Me and Jimmy are a few pages away from finding out whodunit."

Steve rolled his eyes and signaled to Peggy that he was ready to go. She led the way back through rows and rows of the wounded. Neither of them spoke, not even after they'd exited the aid station and were walking along the muddy pathways. A dull glow was about the place; dawn was on its way.

"So what's up?" Steve asked as they walked toward the perimeter of camp.

"Perhaps I'm speaking too soon," Peggy said, "but I've gotten wind that Colonel Phillips has a mission for you."

"A mission."

"Yes, a _real_ mission."

Steve said dubiously, "A mission more important than selling war bonds?"

The air was still heavy and plinking lazy rain down on them. Peggy thought it might be close to freezing by now. She took one more step and then turned to face Steve. "Perhaps. I'm telling you this because I thought you might like to choose the choir yourself this time around."

* * *

 **tbc**


	2. Wahoo

**NOTE:**

 **How many times can I spell "manoeuver" wrong? A lot.**

* * *

Colonel Chester Phillips looked from the paperwork in his right hand to the line of six men standing opposite him. Steve Rogers stood at the end of the six-man line, a step in front of the others, perpendicular. He was all that stood between them and the brass. Agent Peggy Carter stood behind Phillips. She caught Steve's eye and smiled tightly.

"This is your team," Phillips said dubiously. " _These_ are the best men you put together."

"Yes, sir." After Krausberg, Steve found that his enthusiasm for military protocol was dwindling at an increasing rate. While Colonel Phillips had never _scared_ him, Steve had kept himself to a certain level of respect. Now, though, he was beginning to understand why the enlisted men always had such colourful things to say about the top of the military hierarchy. "These are the best men that the Allies have to offer."

Steve hoped he was the only one who saw Bucky roll his eyes.

Colonel Phillips looked at his paperwork again with a frown. His eyes jumped up and skewered Falsworth. "Is there going to be any trouble with you taking orders from an inferior American officer, Major?"

A near-member of the brass himself, Falsworth didn't look anything close to bothered by Phillips. "Sir, I am honoured to serve under Captain Rogers."

Phillips appeared a little dismayed to hear it. So he moved on and flapped a hand at Dernier. "This one even speak English?"

Dernier nodded and looked as happy as a cartoon. "I am learning more every day, sir," he said. His accent was heavy, but the words were clear.

Steve wondered how all of these men were able to inject so much attitude into their responses without crossing the line into insubordination. It was quickly becoming a skill he was interested in honing.

Moving down the line, Phillips made a _tsk_ ing sound at Morita. Steve saw a very familiar look on the colonel's face. Colonel Phillips used to look at Steve that way all the time when they did drills at Camp Lehigh. Stepping further down the line (and closer to Steve), Phillips looked at Dugan and Jones and said, "At least they're big."

A smirk blossomed on Bucky's face, and all Steve could think was _oh no_.

"Yeah, and this one doesn't even need to wear a helmet. His head's so thick already," Bucky said while slapping Dugan on the back. "Sir," he tacked on at the end.

Phillips looked Bucky up and down critically. Steve wished his friend had at least _tried_ to get the wrinkles out of his shirt (Steve hadn't lost enthusiasm for dress uniform protocol yet). It was very unlike Bucky to let his clothes become so untidy, especially the nice ones since they'd seldom _had_ nice clothes back home. A new layer of hard frown creased the colonel's face.

"You're the reason we're all here, aren't you, Sergeant Barnes?"

"Oh, no, sir," Bucky said. "Your people are the ones responsible for all of this." The words were sharp as knives, and his opinion of what the S.S.R. had achieved through Project: Rebirth was more than evident.

Phillips looked hard at Steve. There was disbelief and some anger there. " _This_ is your second in command," he said while gesturing to Bucky.

"Yes, sir," said Steve, "there's no one else I'd rather have. There's no one else I _will_ have." Peggy caught Steve's eye again when he said that.

They all noticed when Bucky rolled his eyes that time.

" _This_ is your team of the best men?" He finally had the tone of a question and not an accusation.

"Yes, sir."

The colonel looked down at his paperwork again. He flipped a few of the sheets and read them again. Steve recognised the resignation on Phillips's face. He signed the papers with a pen handed to him by a nearby private.

"You all have got a lot of work to do. Agent Carter, get these men out of my bunker and out to Great Dunmow." Phillips handed his paperwork over to Peggy and left shaking his head.

"Welcome, gentlemen," Peggy said, "and congratulations on your transfers to the Strategic Scientific Reserve."

* * *

Much to the transfers' surprise, they were on a truck headed northeast from London mere hours after their paperwork was signed. None of them were used to the wheels of military turning so quickly. Hell, they'd sat around in the same place for _days_ in the field before orders to move out were ever actuated. Evidently, things in the S.S.R. were going to be different.

They arrived at RAF Great Dunmow and were moved into their barracks. The building was a long and low structure, and it would be going to waste, seeing as it would only be housing the six of them. Captain America had his own quarters nearer to brass HQ.

The sun was just reaching its midpoint (if anyone could see it beyond the clouds) when Agent Carter stood in their doorway and told them it was time to begin training. And so it was that the men who would be called the Howling Commandos were stamped with bruises, sprayed with mud, rinsed in sweat, and parted with the calluses Krausberg had developed on their hands under Agent Carter's drilling. She had them run countless circuits around the airfield that first day, punctuated by bursts of callisthenics; obstacle courses which featured barbed wire pits, rope obstacles, and challenges which required some of them to wade into what looked like small ponds of sludge. There had been no time for PT gear to be administered, so they ran in whatever they happened to be wearing, which happened to be their dress uniforms. And it was raining. After six hours, they were released to their barracks.

"Fuckin' buttons," Bucky said. His hands were damp and shaking from the cold and his jacket refused to cooperate with him.

"Sarge, you're getting mud all over the place," Gabe said. He was unlacing his boots at the door.

Bucky looked at the trail he'd left. "Well . . . hell." Walking the rest of the way to his bunk, he gave up on his jacket and began unlacing his boots.

"Too old," Dernier muttered. When he stretched, the long, empty barracks echoed with his popping joints.

"They're not gonna make us do that every day," Jim Morita said, already collapsed on his own bed. "We just spent months doing hard labour, and Barnes — _and Barnes_! They can't be putting you through work like that, Sarge!"

Dum Dum cottoned on and said with convincing sincerity, "Yeah! It's too soon for Jimmy to be running around like that. We're a team now, and we gotta stick together. We all refuse to run until our sergeant recovers."

"Do you think that would actually work?" Gabe usually didn't buy into their hijinks. He was one of the only voices of reason that ever helped Bucky keep those yokels alive in the field and then again in... Bucky had quickly learned that an eye had to be kept on Monty; the accent and all that pomp led you to the false conclusion that he was sane.

"If we mention it to Rogers, I think he might do all the work for us," said Monty.

"Think you could do it, Barnes?" Jim threw one of his damp and reeking socks at Bucky to get his attention.

"What, you want me to tell _Captain America_ that I'm s—" he caught himself about to say the word 'still' "—too sick from being tortured to be participating in PT?"

It was easier for all of them to talk about it like it was a joke. Bucky would have preferred they not talk about it at all, but he knew this was an unreasonable preference. He would have wanted to know every last detail if it had been one of the others on that table in place of him. So he tolerated most of their fussing and mother henning. Made it easier on him that the guys disguised it as humour.

"Yes," said Monty. "We want you to extract every last drop of power that you can from that excuse."

"Bring up the pneumonia," Dum Dum suggested with enthusiasm. "I don't think he's heard about that yet."

Most of the men were rooting around in the footlockers that had been placed at the ends of the bunks. There were warm clothes, thank the Lord in Heaven. Bucky finally got all his buttons undone and threw his wet jacket onto the floor. The pins and decorations made smacking noises on the wood. He didn't even care that the jacket landed on the muddy trail he'd created. His clothes continued to be shucked off until he was down to underpants and dog tags. Deciding it would be a crying shame to not make use of the empty beds, Bucky stole three blankets and buried himself under them in his bunk.

"Your mothers will be ashamed of all of you," Bucky said, eyes closed. "Too lazy to participate in PT . . ."

Another dirty sock bounced off of the lump Bucky's body made under the blankets. Fuckin' Dernier. Guy was the smelliest person Bucky had ever met. Stank like chemicals; it was creepy, like he wasn't normal flesh and bone like the rest of them.

"You going to sleep, Sarge?" Dum Dum asked. Bucky believed the word for the look on Dum Dum's face fell somewhere between _incredulity_ and _exasperation._

"What's it to you?"

"Nothing. Just that it's seven in the evening," said Monty. "And we're allowed hot food, I've been told."

Gabe piped up, "He _is_ turning ninety-nine tomorrow, fellas. You know how old folks get."

Bucky rolled so his back was facing the men. "Shut up. You're all assholes. But if there's food, you should bring me some."

"Get it yourself," Jim sniped back, quick as ever.

"Be nice to me," said Bucky, "I was tortured."

Five groans and seven smelly socks bounced off his back.

* * *

Steve couldn't decide if Brooklyn's bitter winters were better or worse than the eternal dampness that seemed to hang around England. It was beginning to feel like he'd never be properly dry again. The paper he carried was already beginning to curl from exposure to the air. He found his way to the mess hall purely by luck and stamped the muck from his boots as best he could before entering. The place had warmth within it that went beyond sensible heat. It was a different feeling than the stuffiness of the bunkers and intelligence rooms he'd spent most of the day in. Steve felt like he could breathe again.

"Captain!" Dernier called. He waved jovially.

Steve waved back. The mess hall was different from anything Steve was used to. This place seemed to work on-demand rather than on the clock. Well, the mess at Lehigh never served this late, when so few people were around; must be one of those S.S.R. perks. After collecting a tray from the serving lines, Steve joined his new unit at a table smack-dab in the centre of the room.

"So, how was _your_ day, honey?" said Dugan.

"A lot of sittin' around," said Steve, "and talking."

Morita leaned over his metal tray and stared at Steve. "We had to do PT for _six hours_. Six hours, Cap! They're gonna kill us!"

"Barnes looked ready to keel over," Falsworth said. He wouldn't look Steve in the eye.

Jones nodded and said, "Looked like he did when he was still hacking up his lungs from pneumonia." The shiver he gave seemed a little off.

Steve raised his eyebrows and took a bite of whatever loaf of meat had been served. He had three servings on his plate. Another S.S.R. perk? Or maybe just a Captain America perk. He said, "Is that why he's not here?"

They all nodded gravely and wouldn't look at him. Dugan said, "Went right to sleep under a pile of blankets. Didn't even have the strength to eat first."

"Is that right," Steve said flatly. "I'll talk to him. In the meantime, orders."

He handed out the stacks of papers to his men. _His men_. It felt good to have a team. Steve felt a bubbling pride inside him. Was this how parents felt when their kids did something good? No wonder everyone tried to have as many as possible.

"First PT, now this," said Morita. He flipped opened his packet of orders. "Stark?" he said. "I'm meeting with Stark?"

Steve nodded while he swallowed. "You're all going to be spending time with people to sharpen your individual skills. We're all going to need a specialty, and someone as a backup for each specialty, if this gonna work."

"Mechanical technician and communications officer," Morita read from a page in his packet. "Not bad for a Ranger, eh?"

"What'd you get?" Dugan asked Falsworth.

"Scouting, reconnaissance, and intelligence officer." The Brit shrugged. "I think I can manage that. And you?"

"Navigation, transportation including armoured trucks and tanks, and artillery." Dugan raised his eyebrows at the list. His moustache was twisted into a strange line, and he nodded.

"Boom!" said Dernier. He clapped his hands; it made a disproportionally loud sound.

"Well that's a surprise," said Jones.

"What are you then?" said Falsworth.

"Translator, code breaker, and drafter. What, am I going to make maps?" Jones looked up and over to Steve with amusement.

Steve shrugged with his mouth full. "I didn't write it."

Dugan looked up from his packet and said, "What's Jimmy doing then?"

Mouth full again — why did they always ask once he took a bite? — Steve just slid Bucky's orders packet across the table.

"What's it say?" Morita had missed getting the file by an inch.

"Marksman," said Dugan. "He's gonna be a sniper."

"You mean he wasn't already?" said Jones.

Steve said, "You're all doing PT drills in the morning, specialty training in the afternoon, and we're all doing manoeuvres in the evening."

"We're going to do that _every day_?" said Morita, horrified.

Steve nodded and hummed "uh huh." After he finished chewing — he was enjoying Captain America's appetite for now — Steve said, "Colonel Phillips thinks you guys need to get back to form after Krausberg."

"Back to form!" Dugan looked indignant. "We were doing hard labour! That _was_ PT! Just feed us, and we'll be better than ever."

Dernier was muttering darkly in French.

Jones said, "How come none of us are gonna be the medic?"

"All of us are getting first aid training."

Morita threw up his hands. "When are they gonna make us do that? In our sleep?"

Steve held back laughter. "No, there're special days for it."

"Is there anything you can do about this schedule? None of us will make it off the runway if they're gonna run us like this." Morita seemed really upset about all this. Steve struggled to keep his face neutral.

"I'll see if I can talk to the colonel," Steve said without any intention of actually doing it.

They all nodded approvingly. Dugan said, "It's not right, especially with Jimmy still sick." More nodding all around.

 _Yeah. Bucky. Right._ Steve collected his empty dishes and stood up. "I'll see what I can do, and I'll make sure our marksman is still breathing." He returned the dishes, snuck another portion into a mess kit, and picked up Bucky's packet of orders. "Gentlemen," he said in parting.

The tracks between buildings had become increasingly soft and muddy. Steve frowned about it all the way to Barracks 14. Pounding as much mud off his boots as possible again, Steve shouldered the door open and turned on the lights. Bucky was identified immediately as the lump on the second bed to the left. A convenient trail of muddy footprints led right to him. Steve crept over to the bunk, ignoring all the socks lying around it.

Deepening his voice as much as he could, Steve yelled, " _James_!"

The lump jumped nearly a foot in the air, pale and flailing limbs blossoming out of it. Bucky looked up at Steve through squinted eyes. "Jesus Christ, don't do that to a man, Steve. You sounded just like my pa."

Bucky's father had been prone to bouts of anger and shouting. Bucky's mother said it was shell shock. Steve had found it funny that Bucky reacted to that voice in the same way that he had as a child.

"I've been told that you're too ill to go to the mess," said Steve. He set the mess kit down beside Bucky and took the opportunity to look him over for any _real_ signs of lingering fatigue. The outside of the mess kit was still warm, and Steve tossed the packet of papers down. "And I've got orders for you."

"Don't listen to those idiots," Bucky said, still not moving to sit up. "They're just lazy and trying to get out of doing any work."

"I thought as much," said Steve. He sat down on an empty bunk. "You're really fine?"

Bucky finally made to sit up. The thick layers of blankets shifted around him stiffly. (That's military life for you: If it's not caked with three months of dirt, it's bleached within an inch of its life.) Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, Bucky said, "Yeah, I'm fine. Just a little jumpy is all. No thanks to you."

Steve held up his hands in surrender. "I couldn't pass up the opportunity."

Digging around in the mess kit, Bucky muttered, "You're still a punk. Good to know one thing hasn't changed."

Steve didn't try to hold back his laughter, but he couldn't help but notice how much narrower Bucky's shoulders seemed. The serum had done wonders for Steve's eyesight; maybe he just hadn't been seeing Bucky clearly all those years before. Maybe it just seemed different since Steve's own shoulders had become so much broader, his eyelevel so much higher. He should have brought more food.

Another thing: Steve couldn't remember Bucky ever eating so slowly in his life. The sergeant abandoned the mess kit for the stack of papers before it was empty. Bucky's eyebrows jumped on his forehead.

"Sniper, huh?" He looked up at Steve as if the papers could be wrong.

"If that's what it says."

Bucky shrugged to no one and looked back down at the papers. "They want me to study Soviet marksman tactics," he said with surprise. "And I'm going to work with a Russian. S.S.R. is in with the Red Army too?"

Steve said, "It wouldn't surprise me. Seems like they know every entity in the war."

"I hear the Red Army uses broads as snipers," Bucky said.

Steve could see the hesitation on Bucky's face. He could tell that his friend was bothered by the orders. "What is it? You don't want to work with the Soviets?"

"No, it's not that." Bucky kept his eyes on the papers but they weren't moving; he wasn't reading. He just didn't want to look up.

"You don't want to be a sniper? The guys seemed to think you were one already."

Another shrug and a glance up that was so quick Steve wouldn't have been sure it happened if he didn't have superhuman eyesight. "I mean, I'm a good shot. But I'm not a sniper. Well, not until now," Bucky said while flicking the papers in his hands.

Steve bit his tongue to keep himself from openly frowning. Frustration at not being able to read Bucky was building inside him. This had never been an issue before. Steve wondered if it was because of how the serum changed him or if it was because of how the war had changed Bucky.

Leaving the stack of orders to take up the mess kit again, Bucky said, "What about you? What do they have Captain America doing while the rest of us train?"

"Uh," said Steve. His own thick stack of papers was lying behind him on the bunk, and he picked it up when Bucky asked about it. "Quite a few things, actually."

Being tortured apparently didn't make it any harder for Bucky to read Steve like a book. Not even the serum could disguise his thoughts. Steve couldn't say that the fact upset him. Bucky put his hand out, and Steve filled it with Captain America's orders. With baited breath, Steve watched Bucky read the first few pages of his orders and continue to eat meatloaf at a glacial pace.

"Doesn't seem so bad," said Bucky. "You just have to do the work of six men at one time. And learn every combat manoeuvre the army has ever written." He was laughing but it slowed when he saw the look on Steve's face. "What?"

Steve shook his head. He was about to unload everything that had been building up since he marched back into Colonel Phillips's camp with 400 men in tow. "Buck, I don't know how to _do_ any of this. I don't know how to lead men. I don't know anything about combat. I worked so hard to get here, and I just noticed that I'm responsible for the lives six men now. If I make a bonehead call and one of you guys pays the price—"

Bucky shook his head and reached a pallid arm towards Steve's shoulder. "Hey, man, calm down. You know more than you think. You got us all out of there, didn't you? That's not something you sneeze at." Bucky gestured to Steve's pile of orders and said, "This stuff can be learned. What you did — Steve, not just anyone can convince people to follow him back to certain death. These guys trust you. I trust you. The hard part is already over. You can learn strategy and all the technical stuff, no sweat. No one can teach you the instinct you already have."

Staring at his boots with his brow pinched, Steve said, "Would you help me?"

"Help you how? Teach you how to be a textbook CO?"

" _Yes_."

Bucky laughed and patted Steve on the shoulder. "You better believe I'll help you. Can't have you tellin' the brass that you're going to go bustin' into factories with no plan. And I can already see you running headfirst into enemy fire while the rest of us just try to keep up. Your big new arms aren't bulletproof, you know. Can't punch bullets."

Steve leaned back, and Bucky withdrew his arm. He pulled the blankets up around his shoulders. Ignoring the feeling that stirred in his gut, Steve said, "I don't know. Maybe I _could_ punch a bullet."

"Tell me you're joking. Tell me you haven't already tried."

"Relax. Nothing like that happened."

Bucky's wary glare wasn't what it used to be — it was even more terrifying. "How did they test you?"

"Test me?" said Steve.

"How did they find out how much stronger you'd gotten? You know, how did they _quantify_ it? How did they test the limits of — of _you_?"

Steve scratched his neck. "They didn't. Not really. I mean, I chased down Dr. Erskine's killer's getaway car. But they never did any physical tests or anything. S.S.R. just collected samples of my blood for a bit, and then I was touring for the USO." It wasn't really necessary to mention the films and performances, so Steve didn't. Concerned about the blank look on his friend's face, Steve pressed the mess kit back into Bucky's hands and said, "Eat."

Relief flooded Steve when he saw that it worked: Bucky accepted the kit and his face became animated again.

"You chased a _car_?" Bucky was nearly shouting.

"Keep it down. But, yes, and it wasn't a big deal or anything—"

"Steve, you just told me that you chased a fucking car."

There was a time when Steve feared telling Bucky about the fights he had gotten into on the way home from school more than he feared telling his own mother. They were two different kinds of fear. With his mother, Steve feared what wrath she'd let loose on him. But with Bucky, Steve feared what his friend would do to the guys Steve got into the fight with. It was humiliating to have Bucky go hunt them down, exact whatever revenge he felt he had to deliver. Steve was no damsel in distress; he didn't need anyone fighting his battles for him. Not then and certainly not now.

"Steve, do you even _know_ what your limits are? Since you know you can run at least as fast as a _fucking car_." Bucky would begin lecturing if Steve didn't head him off soon. "Do you even know how strong you are? Do you crush things without meaning to?"

"What? No! I may have broken a few pencils at first—" He was cut off by Bucky throwing his arms up in the air. Steve grumpily thought, _Eat your food, Barnes, and shut up._ One thing his friend was right about: Steve didn't really know how to fight in this body. He was sure that he'd killed a HYDRA operative or two with his bare hands and the shield in Krausberg. And he _had_ broken things at first, torn paper on accident. But Steve had gotten used to his new proportions before he started working with the USO.

Somehow it was decided (one-sidedly) that Bucky was going to teach Steve to fight properly with his new body.

Steve protested, "No, Bucky! I could hurt you on accident — _really_ hurt you!"

"Good!" his friend shouted. "Maybe it'll give you more motivation to control your giant self!"

Steve begrudgingly agreed, deciding that he would have to come up with a way out of the agreement later. He noticed Bucky shivering then, and said, "I think I'm going to turn in. You should finish eating and then do the same. We're going to be busy the next few days."

"Yeah, yeah," Bucky said, still irritated.

Steve got up and said, "I expect you to be wearing trousers next time I see you, Sergeant."

"Yes, sir, Captain America, sir." He gave Steve a sloppy salute.

* * *

Not a second had passed 0500 hours before Barnes was kicking everyone out of their bunks. There was a wealth of bitching and moaning over the manner of the wakeup call, no small amount from Timothy Aloysius Cadwallader Dugan. Yeah, he was damn used to being woken up like that; a boot to the side from Sergeant goddamn Barnes had been waking him up for nearly two years now. The guy was a menace. Then again, Dugan wouldn't have it any other way.

"One of these days, Jimmy, I'm gonna wake _you_ up with a boot to the gut. See how you like it."

"I look forward to it, Dum Dum. In the meantime, get your ass up."

So he got his ass up. But, you know, just to humour the kid.

There was one good thing about their transfers: the food. These S.S.R. types fed the men like there wasn't a war going on. Dugan didn't exercise one ounce of self-control and ate until they would serve him no more. That turned out to be a mistake, and he wasn't the only one of them that ended up throwing up during their drills that morning.

"Lesson learned," said Jim Morita. There were thin strings of saliva hanging from his lips.

"No shit," said Dugan.

That force of nature called Agent Carter ran them ragged around the airfield. Dugan thanked whatever god there was that the drills didn't last _six hours_ this time. She released them, and they ran faster than they had all morning just to get away from her, lest she change her mind. There was enough time to stuff their faces some more. Dugan made sure to put a limit on himself this time.

"You guys see we're doing jump training in a few weeks?" said Gabe over their lunch of 'spaghetti' — limp noodles and ketchup. (Hey, it wasn't always good, but they were allowed as much of it as they wanted.)

"Jump training?" said Jim. "Where are we jumping?"

"Out of an airplane, obviously," Monty said. "Have none of you done it?" They each shook their heads at the Brit who was sat there acting as if they had just admitted to never having opened a jam jar. "Well, then, I look forward to teaching you how it's done."

Barnes's face scrunched into that familiar duck face he made when thinking hard. "Doesn't it take paratroopers months to go through jump school? They're not even out of training. The American ones, anyway. We don't have that kind of time."

"I suppose that's why we only get three days to do it," said Gabe.

There were a lot of shrugs around the table. Except for Barnes. He frowned hard at his bastardised spaghetti and muttered, "These people are fuckin' nuts."

And then it was time for their specialised training. Jim and Gabe headed off the S.S.R. HQ bunker, Jim to take lessons or something from Stark and Gabe to meet with . . . someone. The rest of them were taken to a shooting range a short distance away from the airfield and spread out along the range. Defunct trucks and other equipment littered part of the range.

"What's that about?" Dugan asked his instructor.

"Good for practice," he answered and handed Dugan a _Panzerschreck_.

Dugan whistled lowly. "How many of Jerry's guns you guys got?"

"All of them."

Smug little bastard. HYDRA guns were another story, Dugan soon found out.

He whiled away the hours learning the ins and outs (and feel) of about seven German guns. They'd correctly assumed that Dugan already knew most of the American light artillery guns. When Dugan finally got to fire the _Panzerschreck_ at the broken-down armoured truck, the thing jumped and lit up the range with a hot orange ball.

"Wahoo!" Barnes shouted from the other end of the range. His rifle was waving in the air. (Even from a distance, Dugan could see the sour look on the face of the Russians who were meant to be instructing Barnes. Not fans of distractions, Dugan took it.)

"Wahoo!" Monty echoed, light-hearted.

Another explosion rocked the ground beneath them. All heads turned to the right. A French-accented voice shouted, "Wahoo!"

"Wahoo!" three voices chanted back at him.

So the first day of specialised training went OK. Even if the weather was absolutely miserable. Dugan and the others were reunited with Jim and Gabe at the airfield, and were joined by Captain America himself at the mess hall. It was their first meal all together as a unit. It was decidedly loud. Mostly because of Barnes complaining about how the Russian snipers he was meant to be learning from didn't speak English, except for one of them whose sentences were still forty percent Russian anyway.

"I swear to God, I'm going to be _thinking_ in Russian before the war ends," he complained.

"Hey, one less thing for me know," said Gabe.

Rogers piped up, "Don't you already know some Russian anyway?"

"That's not the point, Steve! These guys are nuts — the sort of shit they were telling me to do."

Monty was nodding his head. "It's true. I'm to be his scout, and I saw the literature from the Red Army sniper schools. It is very nutty indeed."

Barnes and Monty complained about the tactics of the Red Army with great camaraderie.

Rogers leaned toward Dugan on his right and said, "How did you guys look today?"

"Well, it's only day one, but I think we're shaping up pretty good," said Dugan. "We're pretty good at making things go boom at least."

"Good. We'll be doing a lot of that." Rogers seemed satisfied. "Brass wants us to be field ready by Christmas."

"What," Dugan squawked. "That's only four weeks away!"

Nodding, Rogers said, "They're already collecting recon on the base in Greece."

"Hear that, boys? Christmas in the Mediterranean!"

The news was not met with cheers.

Dugan said to Rogers, "Don't worry. We'll be ready. How about you, Cap? Never had to do an op with a plan and orders before, have you?"

Rogers smiled sheepishly. "I actually did have a plan before. I just had to improvise a bit. I'm sure I'll figure it out. And if I don't, then Sergeant Barnes is gonna earn his pay check."

"Jimmy's no Captain America on the battlefield, I can tell you that."

A wrinkle formed on the captain's brow. "What do you mean?"

Dugan laughed at the poorly hidden apprehension on Rogers's face. It was going to be awfully fun taking the piss out of Rogers and Barnes for their obvious and mutual concern for one another. In a morbid sort of way, Dugan couldn't wait to get back out on the battlefield and see who would take a bullet for the other first.

"I mean Jimmy ain't stupid and reckless." Hopefully, Barnes would curb that impulse in Rogers. Hell, Dugan was grateful that the guy had done what he'd done in Krausberg, but he sure as shit didn't want to be a part of any suicide missions like that. The war hadn't driven him _that_ mad yet.

When they assembled just outside the boundary of the airfield for their tactical manoeuver that evening, it almost felt real. Not _real_ real. But real like a dress rehearsal. All of them were in full-gear. Dugan felt a little bad for Jim having to carry all the spare batteries for the radio on his back when they all knew full well that they weren't going to need them.

Rogers opened a large envelope containing their sit rep and the map of the training area. He said, "Our objective is to locate the bunker in the woods, eliminate all security and patrols defending it, and evacuate the prisoners."

He laid the map out so they could all see it. Gabe retrieved from a pocket inside his jacket a map with a leather cover. It was identical to the one Rogers had spread out. Dugan oriented himself and pointed to a spot on the left side of Rogers's map, saying "We're here." Gabe had already made a pencil mark of the same spot on his own map.

"OK," Rogers said. "Bucky, Morita, and Falsworth, you guys go ahead. Scout the area and mark any enemy movements you see on the map." He folded up the map and handed it to Monty. To Morita: "Radio the coordinates back to us, and Gabe will mark 'em on _his_ map. Do not engage any OPs. Go until you see the bunker or until their defences are too strong to sneak by. Signal us, and we'll meet you. Find a place to nest, Buck."

Barnes nodded his head impassively. He handed Rogers his Thompson so he could swing a shitty old Springfield rifle into his hands and said, "Team James moving out."

The five of them watched their scouting crew move out and into the tree line. It was all very dramatic, especially when slow, fat rain drops began to fall.

"Jimmy won't be able to see a damn thing through that scope," Dugan said to no one in particular.

Gabe clapped him on the shoulder. "I'm sure Stark will be able to whip something up for him that won't fog so easily."

"He better," the captain growled.

Dugan couldn't _wait_ until they got back into combat.

They got the first radio signal seven minutes later. Rogers had been given some sort of teeny tiny radio from Stark that could receive signals from the one Jim carried. Gabe listened for Jim's coordinates through the headset and marked the locations of the detected forces on the map in pencil. Sometimes he marked long paths indicating sweeping enemy forces. Jim said over the radio if the OPs were following a time schedule or if they were moving randomly.

After forty minutes, Gabe looked up and said, "They've stopped about three miles in." He was pointing to a specific spot on the map. "They found the bunker, and it has pretty heavy fortifications. Monty said there were two machine guns, one on the north and one on the south. There are groups of three patrolling the entrance of the bunker — on the south-facing side — every four minutes. Barnes is set up here," Gabe finished by tapping a pencil mark on the east side of the bunker.

Rogers nodded. "Alright. We're entering from the west, so Dugan and Jones sweep left and clear out the patrols. I'll take Dernier and go right. We'll pick up Morita and Falsworth and then clear the north side. Sweep down to clear the east, and then attack when you get an opening. Try to keep it quiet, keep your lights off, and cover anything reflective. We don't want anyone knowing we're coming."

"Fix bayonets," Dugan said to himself.

"Aye, aye, Captain," said Dernier.

"Moving out," Rogers said.

* * *

"Hit me," Bucky said.

Steve looked at Bucky like he had just suggested that he strip naked and do the hula. "Bucky, I am _not_ going to hit you!" he shouted.

Bucky rolled his eyes. Why were they even friends? "Hit me."

"You've lost it. They really did mess you up in that camp."

Bucky threw a fist at Steve's cheek. He _really_ didn't want to talk about Krausberg right now. It was all Steve ever wanted to talk about. He'd try to sneak it into every goddamn private conversation they had. It was driving Bucky up a fucking wall; he was almost ready to start actively avoiding Steve, and it was only their third night at Great Dunmow.

Steve's new, giant, rock-hard head reeled back from the punch. Bucky was pretty sure he'd just broken something in his hand — thank God he'd swung with his left — and had the presence of mind to dodge Steve's retaliatory swing of his club-like arm. Just to be safe, Bucky took a step back. Despite everything, he didn't really want to die yet.

"What the hell?" Steve shouted. "You punched me."

"It probably didn't even hurt," Bucky said, hoped.

"That's not the issue, Buck."

An obligatory eye roll at that. He stepped forward and jabbed Steve in the oblique, quickly retreating. (Bucky would never admit that this boxing match was just as much for himself as it was for Steve).

"Cut it out." Steve swung his hand at the place where's Bucky's fist had been just seconds ago.

"Fight me."

"I'm not gonna fight you!" Steve was turning, trying to keep Bucky in his sights as he stepped around the captain. "I'll probably hurt you."

"No, you won't." Bucky knocked the back of Steve's head like he used to when they were twelve and Steve had picked a particularly stupid fight. "Fight me, Rogers. You fought all of Brooklyn without any provocation. Fight me. I'm literally asking for it."

"I already admitted that I broke things at first, didn't know my strength. But I figured it out. I know what I can and cannot do, Buck. This is stupid and dangerous. I don't know why you're so dead set on this."

"You're not gonna break me." Bucky made his voice convey the rolling of his eyes. Poor Steve was still turning in circles while Bucky danced around him. "And if you don't want to break anyone else on accident, you'll _fight me_." Time was up; Bucky shoved his boot into the space behind Steve's knee and made his friend stagger.

And the game was on. Bucky deflected Steve's first swing and dodged the second. From then on, it was mostly a game of jab and dodge. Steve must not have realised how much more of him there was, because he kept leaving himself unprotected and vulnerable. If Bucky got him in the side, Steve covered the area but did it at the expense of his chest and neck. He did have the reflexes, Bucky had to admit. More of Steve's blows were being deflected rather than outright dodged — Bucky was going to be sore in the morning. It ended when Steve landed a pulled punch on Bucky's side. Ironically, it was much like the jab Bucky had used to get this whole mess started. The punch may have been pulled, but that one was definitely a stinger. And Steve _knew_ it.

"Jesus, I'm sorry. I _told_ you that I'd hurt you." Steve was all giant hands and apologetic eyes.

It was so goddamn annoying how the intensity of Steve's sincerity somehow got more powerful just like the rest of him. Bucky forced himself not to rub the hurt from the place where Steve had just hit him. He didn't curl over the spot, but he felt sure it was already bruising. Boxing and war and Krausberg had all reinforced the fact that to reveal a weakness was to lose. And Bucky hated to lose.

"I'm fine," Bucky said. At least his voice sounded normal. "You held back."

"Of course I held back!"

"No, it's good. That's the point of this. You need to know how much is enough to wound but not to kill."

"I'm not doing this again, Bucky — Jesus, I'm not doing this just so I know how hard I have to punch to knock you out!"

"What about when we have to capture some HYDRA goon and they're not being compliant? Are you gonna try to knock them out but accidentally hit too hard? What about when you have to bust down a civilian's door because there might be agents in there? Are you gonna smash it so hard that the building falls down on top of everyone? Steve, you have to know _exactly_ how to control everyone around you and how to control yourself if you're going to lead. You have to know what's enough, and you have to know when enough isn't _enough_."

Steve was staring at him with that _look_. The look he always got when he was thinking about something that would eventually land Bucky in trouble. That Steve-Rogers-is-Up-to-No-Good look had gotten Bucky into shit so deep he'd needed a snorkel just to breathe. He could still feel the places where his father had disciplined him because of the trouble Steve and that _look_ had gotten him into.

"I'm not going to fight you."

Stubborn ass: It was a role that both of them could play.

 _What if I go nuts and someone needs to stop me? What if I go nuts but I don't want to die?_

"Yes, you are."

They sparred again the next night.

* * *

". . . have been faster if we'd have gone that route, don't you think, Buck? Buck?" Steve looked up from the map he had spread across the table in his quarters and over to the chair his friend had taken up residence in after their sparring.

Bucky took a loud, rasping breath and shook his head quickly. His eyes were puffy and squinted; he was making the duck face again. "What were you saying?"

The number of times Steve had seen this act before was astronomical.

"If you're tired, all you have to do is say so." Steve took a step away from the table and the map.

"No, no," Bucky said. Steve watched his jaw fight a yawn. "Let's keep going. We're running out of time to get this stuff figured out."

They were two weeks in, and jump training started tomorrow. Their training had been gruelling, even Steve had to admit that he felt it. His didn't start his mornings with the same PT as the rest of the guys, but he had his own tests, both physical and strategic. Phillips and Peggy ran him through strange and increasingly more complex tactical situations. It was a very good way to make Steve feel like an absolute idiot — even though he hadn't outright failed any of the tests, it still served to make him feel wholly unprepared to lead anyone on missions.

Steve raised his brows at his friend, doubtful of Bucky's ability carry on in their nightly meetings on strategy and lessons on How to Be a Commanding Officer. Not to mention that Bucky was moving more stiffly than ever after their last spar. Steve still hated himself for agreeing to do it. It left him feeling better, physically, and a little bit guilty because it came at Bucky's expense. Mostly, though, Steve wondered why Bucky insisted on boxing every night.

"Come on, man," Bucky said, "I've got one more war game in me."

He didn't. Bucky made it just long enough to set up another situation for Steve to unravel before he was back in the chair he'd fallen asleep in. Steve stayed bent over the map for a long time. As stupid-tired as Bucky had been, the defences he'd laid out were incredibly logical and damn near perfect. Steve was supposed to come up with an attack plan to break the defences. Other times Bucky flipped the script and had Steve defend a structure while his own forces invaded.

An hour later, Steve was still staring at the map. He was determined to find a way through the puzzle. It was frustrating and beginning to feel impossible. Every solution he thought of put one of his precious few men at risk — a violation of Steve's mission parameters for _every_ mission from here on out. A part of him was suspicious that Bucky had designed the defences just so that Steve _had_ to sacrifice one of his men. He was just beginning to entertain the idea that the only way to take the building was to walk right up to it and start shooting like mad when Bucky started jerking around in his sleep. It wasn't like normal sleep-movements. Steve grew up with this guy; he knew every type of movement Bucky made, conscious or not. But Steve hadn't seen this before. It was almost like Bucky's body was tensing over and over again. Almost like he was being shocked over and over.

"Bucky?" Steve called. If his voice shook, there was no one there to hear it. He took a step around the table, but by the time he got to Bucky, the jerking had stopped. Steve put a hand on his friend's shoulder.

Strangely, Bucky was instantly awake the second contact was initiated. "Jesus, don't sneak up on me like that, Steve."

"You were — shaking in your sleep," Steve said.

The reaction on Bucky's face was easy for Steve to read. Common tactic: evasion. Bucky ran a hand through his hair and said, "Probably just caught a draft from the door."

 _A draft. Right._ The arch of Steve's right eyebrow communicated the words for him. A frown stared back him.

"I think I'm going to head back to the barracks now. You figure that out?" Bucky nodded to the table.

"Yeah," said Steve. "I think I'd just bust in guns blazing."

"Great plan. Why doesn't everybody do that?" Bucky said flatly. He pushed himself out of the chair and cracked his neck. Steve always hated the sound. It conjured images of bones and tendons and muscles — all things he was quite sick of thinking about, being compromised. There were the words "I'll see you in the morning" and Bucky was gone.

* * *

Jump training was delayed due to inclement weather. It was of the brass's opinion that the newcomers not leap from planes when the pilots would be having a hard time seeing the drop zone and each other. James Montgomery Falsworth didn't necessarily see the weather as a bad thing; he'd trained in similar conditions his first time around. When one learned a skill under the most difficult circumstances, it was rather easy to do it when conditions were favourable.

But the decision was no longer his to make. A bit of a relief to Falsworth, really.

So they were carted off to bunkers for most of five days and shown aid kits, everything a medic was meant to carry with him. Illnesses versus wounds were the main themes. Bandages of different sizes were packed, unpacked, and packed again the first day (usual lessons and training still took place the rest of the day). They were set the task of splinting each other's legs, spilling sulfa packets on one another's trousers, and stopping the bleeding on non-existent wounds. Tourniquets were explained, and they spent a cheerful afternoon attempting to cut off circulation to one another's extremities. The faffing about really got going once the ammonia inhalants were brought out. It could have carried on for some time if not for Agent Carter. She was rather _persuasive_ in getting them to stop.

Mastering the needle was another matter altogether. First aid training was beginning to surpass Falsworth at that point. He simply had no interest in knowing when he had to inject into someone's bloodstream versus into their muscles. Empty syrettes were given to each of them along with peaches. Agent Carter was again needed to stop Morita and Dugan from complaining that it was a crime to stab something as precious as fresh fruit with a needle. It stopped when they were told they were allowed to eat them in the end. Falsworth just poked at the fruit and abandoned it as soon as Agent Carter said they could stop. The Frenchman took his up and ate it as if it were nothing.

This carried on until the last day when they were brought to the very aid station that had received all of the Krausberg survivors from Italy. Several of those men were still patients there. The seven of them, Captain Rogers included, were made to go up and down the rows with the nurses, changing bandages just so, administering penicillin or morphine in turns. Three of their number rose above the rest: Jones, Dernier, and Barnes. Dugan seemed to have the best bedside manner; he made the most bed-bound men crack gins and even laugh a few times. It was too bad he was so clumsy with all the instruments and equipment.

Falsworth felt he tied with Morita for worst attitude, though, of course, Morita was more adept at the technical bits. His pressure was always right; he could hang fluids, treated burned skin without flinching. But he provided absolutely no comfort or reassurance to anyone. Quite the contrary, actually. Rough though both of them were, Morita had the edge when it came to getting the work done. Falsworth, frankly, did not _want_ to be good at first aid. He didn't want it to be his fault when…

The whole thing was rather morose, and the meal they ate afterward was quieter than what was usual. Though they continued to brush up on medic training during all their group manoeuvres at night, Falsworth was confident in thinking that all of them were relieved to be done with that particular focus.

* * *

"Your jump training will consist of three exercises, one exercise to be completed over three successive days," Agent Carter said. It was raining (again), it was miserable, but there was no longer any time to put it off. Jim Morita shivered and burrowed deeper into his coat. "Today you will be learning the proper landing technique and how to pack your parachute. Tomorrow you will be jumping from _that_ tower" — she pointed to a bleak structure at the end of the airfield — "and the day after that you'll be doing two jumps from a C-47."

Barnes was right, these S.S.R. people were nuts. Anyone who jumped out of an aeroplane was nuts — Monty included. That Brit had more loose screws than Dum Dum, and that was saying something. Well, now that Jim thought about it, maybe the Frenchman was the craziest one of them all.

The first day wasn't so bad. Monty took over the instruction for the day, while Agent Carter and Howard Stark chewed the fat on the fringe of the operation. After a few minutes spent going over the procedure of how the exit the plane, the seven of them were up on a wooden platform about four feet high jumping onto the muddy ground. At least it was softer than packed, parched earth.

And then it was step, quarter turn, knees bent, and fall on your ass for _three hours_. Jim was confident that he wasn't the only one with mud up his rear end by the time Agent Carter called it day for them. Nothing like falling ass-first into a mud puddle over and over again in the goddamn rain. The war was gonna be a breeze after the abuse the S.S.R. put them through. Jim grumbled about how this training was worse than the HYDRA camp, though he wasn't anywhere close to meaning it.

They ate some kind of British food for lunch. Monty said it was an abomination of whatever it was _supposed_ to be, and Jim was inclined to believe him. And the kids back home used to make fun of _his_ lunch. This Limey stuff was _gross_. Never mind that he ate everything that was put in front of him and damn near licked the plate. Those details were beside the point.

The rest of the day was spent learning how to pack a parachute. Monty said to make sure there were no imperfections in the silk and ensure that all the folds were done correctly. If they weren't, then they'd realize it when they went _splat_ on the drop zone. Jim thought it was a lot to ask of a bunch of guys who had no experience jumping out of planes and floating around on parachutes to pack a 'chute and then use that same pack to jump out of an actual aeroplane.

It was certainly a good motivator to _do it right_.

The day was pretty light for the most part. Dum Dum even swindled some poor sap into allowing them to drive around the airfield in one of the trucks (he claimed he needed to practice, since transportation was supposed to be his specialty). The bed of the truck was thick with cigarette smoke by the time they decided it was time to turn the truck back in to its keeper.

Cap and Barnes went off to do whatever it was they did together at night. The men had a litany of jokes about what was going on. Jim could think of a whole lot of things that people did at night which left at least one party holding his breath every time he moved.

In a rare bout of seriousness, after the first couple of days of Barnes coming back to the barracks looking like a week-old handkerchief, the five of them — meaning Jim, Dum Dum, Monty, Gabe, and Frenchie — accosted Rogers and demanded to know what was going on. There may or may not have been threats made, in case it came to light that Cap had stormed and utterly destroyed a HYDRA camp, freeing hundreds of men in the process, just so he could personally beat the shit out of the guy who had been getting the shit beat out of him by someone else. (Which was sort of true: They learned that Barnes and Cap were boxing, and all demanded to be in on it, too.)

For his part, Rogers seemed _outraged_ to have been accused of beating the shit out of Barnes. Outraged at Barnes for hiding the fact that his shit was being beat out. If the sneak was hiding that, what else didn't they know about? Which was how the six of them — now including Cap — ended up storming back to the barracks, all ready to give Barnes a verbal licking for being an idiot about hiding his unhealed injuries.

But the guy was asleep. It was common knowledge at Great Dunmow that Sergeant Barnes spent any spare second of time doing his best to imitate a sloth. But they also knew he spent less than a quarter of that time actually sleeping. None of them had the heart to kick his bunk then, especially when he was moanin' and groanin' in his sleep, hamming it up like he fucking _knew_ they were watching him. The men and Cap agreed to postpone the verbal licking for now. It was better that way, they reasoned. They'd have more time to think about what they'd say and collect more examples of exactly how Barnes acted like a moron.

Yeah, and so far, they hadn't gotten around to doling out that lecture. Priorities.

The next morning, they were allowed a late start, thank God. And the sky didn't look ready to piss on them for hours at a time. Again, Agent Carter and Monty led them to the wood and metal tower they'd be doing their practice jumps from. It seemed a lot taller once they got up there. Only Jim and Barnes were displaying the proper amount of apprehension at jumping off the thing, harness or no harness.

"Jesus," Jim said once he'd been outfitted with the safety equipment. "I didn't want to have kids anyway."

All the other men tugged at the straps of the harness, too.

They jumped off the tower so many times it almost wasn't terrifying. Then it was parachute packing again (a test of what they'd learned the day before). There was even time enough for a march and field manoeuvres before the day ended.

Too soon, it was their third and final day of jump training. Now they had to jump out of a _moving_ plane. They'd do it twice that day. One for practice with nothing but their personally packed 'chutes, and another with a full complement of gear, which would add about eighty to ninety pounds. Jim was convinced he was going to crash right to the ground with so much weight strapped to his body.

The men stood around their C-47 that morning. Jim kept exchanging worried looks with Barnes. They were in the same boat; the only sane people here who didn't want to jump out of an aeroplane with nothing but a big old bed sheet strapped to their backs. Why wasn't anyone else ready to shit their pants over this?

"Mind the prop blast on the way out, gents," said Monty casually. "It can be a bit jarring."

"About to get our bells rung, boys!" Dum Dum shouted, clearly enjoying himself.

Then they were boarding the plane. Cap sat right next to the opened door, Barnes across from him. Dum Dum was next to Cap, followed by Jones and Frenchie. Jim sat between Barnes and Monty. Agent Carter and Colonel Phillips sat in seats that were perpendicular to them. Stark and an assistant were flying the C-47. The propellers stuttered to life and the landing gears began rolling beneath them. Jim swallowed down the bile rising in his throat. When he felt the plane become airborne, he was sure he left his stomach somewhere on the ground.

Thankfully, there wasn't much time to think about it before they were at the right height above an open field. Agent Carter unhooked her seatbelt and stood up, using the line running along the top of the plane to steady herself.

"Get ready!" she shouted.

Jim's hands were numb and shaking as he pulled out the hook attached to his parachute bag. All around him, his comrades were doing the same. Monty looked downright bored.

"Stand up!" came Carter's voice over the wind.

They did as she said.

"Hook up!"

Seven hooks latched onto the line overhead. They stood single file, Jim behind Dum Dum's giant back. They checked the line.

"Equipment check!"

Jim patted down Dum Dum and checked that the hook and line to his parachute were in order. Behind him, Gabe was doing the same for him. He felt the tap on his upper arm and saw the thumbs up in his peripheral vision. Jim imitated the motion for Dum Dum.

"Sound off for equipment check!"

One at a time they shouted over the wind. Monty: "Seven OK!"

Frenchie: "Six OK!"

Gabe: "Five OK!"

Jim: "Four OK!"

Dum Dum: "Three OK!"

Barnes: "Two OK!"

Cap: "One OK!"

"Stand in the door," said Agent Carter. She shifted so Cap could fit his broad shoulders in the comparatively narrow space. He braced himself with one boot wedged in the space where the side of the fuselage met the floor and his hands on the outside sides of the door. Agent Carter leaned close to Rogers and said, "Go, go, go!"

And he was out. Jim saw only the captain's head as he did the quarter turn and disappeared. The line shuffled forward and Barnes was gone next. One person away — Jim felt like his lungs couldn't capture the air he was breathing in. Dum Dum was gone. Now Jim was in the door —

 _One one thousand_

— the canopies of the three parachutes below him looked so graceful —

 _Two one thousand_

— Jim's hands gripped the sides of the C-47 —

 _Three one thousand_

— Agent Carter had a hand on his shoulder and shouted, "Go, go, go!" —

 _Four one thousand_

— so Jim launched himself out the door, did a quarter turn, and was falling. The blast from the air behind the propeller jerked him roughly. His parachute flapped above him and opened. He checked the canopy; no tears. It was perfect. The wind buffeted him gently. The country side spread below him rather beautifully. For a sopping wet country that had been bombed for the last few years, this place wasn't so bad.

Jim heard "Wahoooooo" drift up to him on the wind: Dum Dum. "Wahoo!" he shouted in reply as he floated down from the sky. What the hell had he been so worried about?

Jim landed just as he'd learned to do two days ago right in the target drop zone. It was more jarring than it had been when they were jumping off a four-foot wooden platform, but it wasn't bad at all. No broken ankles. He cut his 'chute and rolled the white silk up as best he could. Jogging a short distance away from the DZ, he met up with Cap, Barnes, and Dum Dum.

"Anyone lose it?" he asked.

"Yep," said Dum Dum.

"Threw up before he even cut his 'chute," said Cap. He nodded towards Barnes.

Barnes was still looking a little green. Jim laughed with the rest of them.

"It wasn't so bad. Kind of nice, actually."

Cap said, "Wait 'til you're just floating around and someone's shooting at you. Nothin' you can do but hang there and hope no one shreds the 'chute before you reach the ground."

"God, Steve, shut up," Barnes said. He doubled over again, hands on his knees.

An S.S.R. private collected them in a small, open truck once they'd all landed (unharmed), and she drove them back to the airfield. They had time for lunch, and it was louder than usual. The residual adrenaline from jumping out of an aeroplane amplified their voices inside the mess hall. Agent Carter even joined them for a few minutes. She seemed in a particularly good mood, something she usually didn't allow to show when she was around the men.

Jim, Frenchie, and Barnes spent the rest of the time before the full-gear jump chain smoking outside the mess hall. Howard Stark rounded them up inside his wing of the S.S.R. bunker and threw bags of gear at them so fast that Jim considered just dropping it all on the floor. He'd probably break something powerful, useful, or expensive if he did it. Stark was too trusting.

"What is this?" Barnes asked. There was a rifle in his hands, better than anything any of them had ever seen, Allied or Axis.

"It's your sniper rifle!" Stark looked elated that someone had asked about something he'd had a hand in making. "Take a look at the scope! The lenses have been coated and arranged to all but eliminate fogging, even in the highest humidity."

The scepticism on Barnes's face was priceless and a challenge to Stark, but Jim quickly lost interest as Stark went over all the specs of the modified Johnson rifle. The inventor had already explained to Jim how to use the radio system he'd designed. A good hour and a half was wasted as Stark bounced among the men and explained all the equipment he was outfitting them with and the history behind the designs (none of them particularly cared for the history). They all rolled their eyes at the completed shield Stark presented Cap with. The paint job was a little over the top, Jim had to say.

"Here," Stark said, tossing each of them rather large paper-wrapped packages. "Your new threads. I took all of your preferences into account. Peggy and I came up with the designs. They're pretty spiffy, if I do say so myself. And functional. Well, what are you all standing around for? Go get 'em on and strap all your gear on. We have another jump to do, and Phillips wants it in partial daylight."

Jim had to admit that he looked sharp in the S.S.R. uniform. Was it really a uniform though, since no one else was wearing something like it? He supposed it was OK. This new division wasn't anything like the others, and neither was their new unit. Each person was specialised, and it made sense to Jim that each of their uniforms would be tailored to that specialty. The atmosphere felt charged with them all standing around in their field gear. It was excitement and apprehension and a thousand other things.

Jim really couldn't see what the function of all the colours on Cap's uniform were achieving besides looking like a costume, though.

Barnes shook his head at the captain and said, "It's like they're giving you everything you need to get yourself killed out there. COs aren't supposed to wear identifying markers in the field, and here you are blatantly broadcasting the fact that you're Captain fucking America."

Cap ignored the comments, clapped a hand on the shoulder of Barnes's new jacket, and said, "Coat looks nice, Buck."

They were on the runway at twilight. The equipment was heavy as hell. Cap got help to his feet from Agent Carter. He then proceeded to pull the rest of them to their feet and help them into the C-47. Jim felt like he was walking through water with all the gear strapped to him. They moved in slow motion. When they jumped, the air was filled with seven crazy bastards shouting "Wahoo!"

* * *

Peggy got the men transport to the village nearby, and the six of them celebrated the earning of their wings by drinking the local bar dry, having a loud darts tournament, and smoking their way through seven cigarette rations and a cigar apiece. Steve had declined to join them but did come with Peggy to pick up his six drunken men at 0200 hours. The village was all shut down, and the men were stumbling around drunk as skunks. Steve corralled them one at a time and got them into the back of the truck Peggy was waiting in like some bizarre herding game.

"You have them all?" Peggy asked.

"Yeah, that's the last of 'em," Steve said. He got into the passenger's seat next to her. "I think Dugan tried to bite me."

"I'm sure you'll recover," she said crisply.

Back at the airfield, Peggy helped Steve guide the men back to their barracks, one man being guided by each of them. Not one of them could walk on their own without stumbling. Steve's first official order as their commanding officer was to demand the men keep their drunken asses in the truck until he and Peggy came to get them. After they were all delivered to their bunks, Steve reluctantly said good night to Peggy and went to his own quarters.

But less than an hour later, Steve jerked awake when he felt warm breathing on his face. In his haste to shift away, he banged heads with whatever was above him.

"Ah, shit!" A body recoiled from Steve, the outline of a person extruding from the darkness.

"Bucky?" Steve asked the shape. "What the hell are you doing?"

"Steve, what's your head made of?"

"What are you doing in here? Go back to bed." Steve's eyes had adjusted to the darkness. He could see Bucky sitting on the floor a few feet from the edge of his bunk.

"There wasn't enough air in there." Bucky was rubbing his forehead and frowning.

"You're drunk."

"Well, yeah. I jumped out of an aeroplane _twice_ today, Stevie, 'course I'm drunk."

Steve collapsed on to his back and closed his eyes. "Go to bed, Bucky."

Sleep was a centimetre away when a prodding finger called Steve back to wakefulness.

"Steve."

"Go away."

"Steve."

"It's too late for this."

"I don't want to go back."

Steve sighed but kept his eyes stubbornly closed and his back to Bucky. "You can stay here if you're quiet."

"No, I mean I don't want to go back _._ "

"Doesn't make your statement any clearer." Was it possible to sleep and have conversations at the same time? Would the serum let Steve do that?

There was a weight shift; Bucky had sat down on Steve's bed. Steve groaned and propped himself up on his elbow. The only thing he could do was humour Bucky until he passed out. Hell, he had to be nearly there already.

"Steve," he said, "I don't want to go back."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

" _Steve_." And that voice just sounded wrong.

"Alright," he said while forcing himself into a sitting position. "What's going on?"

Bucky swayed and shrugged. "I don't know."

"That's helpful." Steve eyed Bucky when there was no reply. His friend had stopped swaying and, instead, was holding himself absolutely still. Steve waved a hand in front of Bucky's face. Not a single blink in response. "Bucky?"

Jumping, Bucky turned to Steve. His brow narrowed in confusion. "What?"

"You're acting really weird." _What do British people put in their drinks?_

"It's just . . . I really don't want to go back." He shook his head as if his ears were full of water.

In Steve's experience, it was always a good idea to reassure and humour Drunk Bucky. Putting his hand in the place where Bucky's shoulder met his neck, Steve said, "You're not gonna go back, Buck. Not if you don't want to."

"What if they make me?"

Steve fell back down to finally get some sleep. "I'm your captain now, right? You won't go back unless I say so."

There was no reply, just the sound of unsteady footfalls and the squeak of the door opening and closing.

* * *

The rest of their time was devoted to more first aid lessons, watching the same three films, playing cards, trading books where they could, and education about the mission in Greece, dubbed Operation Jason. A time or two they were able to get a game of improvised baseball going. It was becoming preferable to invent competitions out on the activity field that Agent Carter had broken them on during their first days than to spend time cooped up with maps and tables. At least being outside afford them the illusion of movement.

The afternoons and part of the evening were spent poring over maps and sand tables of the HYDRA base. Recon images coated every surface of the bunker. Each man was to memorise the lay of the land around the base. So they learned everything the maps and images had to reveal about the base, down to the mountains, hills, and streams. They went over countless combat situations, little black and blue pieces acting out battles on the maps. They trained with their new weapons until they knew every last component. At night, they went on marches and practised manoeuvres against S.S.R. troops dressed in German uniforms. They were as functional and well-oiled as any machine in history.

On 23 December 1943, seven men boarded a plane to undertake their first mission as a unit, destination: the Grecian city of Lamia.

* * *

 **NOTE:**

 **Liberties have been taken with specific dates, weapons, locations, etc. I'm thinking of the timeline in _The First Avenger_ as more of a suggestion than a hard and fast truth. **

**tbc**


	3. Operation Jason

Howard Stark was their pilot again. Steve was getting used to the guy. Hell, he'd say they were pretty good friends by now, the whole fondue incident aside. Steve and his unit were spread out inside one of Stark's planes. It was of the same model that Steve had jumped out of in Krausberg. They were somewhere over the Atlantic French coast, destined for a base in the southern tip of Italy. Once they landed, the plane would be refuelled and sent back north. Before Howard flew it that direction, though, he was taking the controls of a C-47 and dropping them off over central Greece. They weren't allowed to do combat jumps out of Howard's personal plane for whatever reason. It's not like Steve hadn't done it before, and he'd do it again if he needed to, whether he had the brass's permission or not.

There was a chorus of shouts from where a few of the men had drawn together. A card game, probably. It was a pastime of theirs, the incomprehensible game. Steve understood that they had made up most of the rules during their confinement in Krausberg. Since they hadn't had a full deck in the cages, the guys had _imagined_ their hands. Everything about them was very esoteric; it was a privilege to be among them. A feeling much like _fondness_ warmed Steve's insides when he thought about it too long

"More than halfway there," Howard called from the pilot's seat.

"Good," said Steve absentmindedly.

"OK back there, pal?"

"Yeah. Just have my mind on other things."

Howard huffed out a laugh. "Don't blame you. First mission. Wait. That's not true, is it?"

Steve had the presence of mind to look marginally guilty. Not that he actually felt it. And Howard wasn't exactly the best person to make a man feel guilty — he made a man want to do something to feel guilty about.

"I have a perfect record," Steve said.

"Oh, right. Of course," Howard said and nodded his head. He made of show of looking impressed. "I sure hope your team doesn't weigh you down, Captain. You can't run off and leave them in the middle of a burning building."

Steve said, "I would never."

Truth was that he was worried about just that. He had spent all those weeks learning how to call his own shots, and he had spent hours at night learning how to lead his men from the ground. Steve could not think of anything more he could have done to prepare for this. The fear still lingered that he would hit the ground and try to do everything. He'd try to save everyone, do all the work. He'd leave everyone behind, leave them vulnerable. No matter how many times Bucky had told him to _wait_ and _let one of us take care of that_ , Steve knew exactly what his greatest weakness was. It was one thing to call the plays; it was a whole different thing to sit there and have someone else do it.

"Don't kid yourself. You picked a fight with Schmidt, and you want to be the one to finish it," said Howard.

"I just want to stop him. I don't care how it happens."

"So you're telling me that if Barnes had a shot on Schmidt's scary red face, you'd tell him to take it?"

There was a beat of hesitation and they both heard it. Steve answered in the affirmative, but the damage had already been done.

"You shouldn't be like that," said Howard. The way he spoke always sounded casual, regardless of the context. Steve wished he could imitate it. "Your guys are there for a reason. They're the best we got — Phillips made sure of that. Use 'em. There's nothing worse than a guy who confuses protecting his men with making reckless decisions."

How many times had Bucky called Steve reckless? At least a thousand before he'd turned ten. Twenty thousand if you counted 'stupid' as a synonym.

"I'll keep that in mind." It felt like a jinx.

There was another rise in volume from the crowd of men. They were leaning away from a messy pile of playing cards in the centre of their group. Half of Steve's face bent into a smile. Dernier's heavily accented voice was telling them all a story. His tone and pitch changed frequently. Steve imagined him being a very good storyteller and making unique voices for all of the characters. For the most part, though, Steve's head stayed full of worrying and planning.

Howard landed the plane on an Allied base in the southernmost part of the Italian mainland. They got off the plane ("So that's what it's like to exit a plane the sane way!" Bucky said) and were immediately swept up by higher-ups on the base. They took them to the mess to force on them food and supplies they had no room to carry. Steve just shook his head at Dugan and Falsworth trying to rearrange the contents of their bags so that a bottle of hooch would fit. Bucky and Dernier made themselves scarce, probably soliciting for cigarettes. Dernier would probably smoke them; Bucky would smoke half and use the rest for trading. Cigarettes and alcohol were the only kinds of currency that mattered to soldiers, Steve had come to find. And socks. He didn't blame them.

An hour and a half after they'd landed, another plane carrying a battalion from the S.S.R. touched down and unloaded. Phillips, Peggy, and the others would be taking a submarine toward Greece. Steve and the men would be coming from the air and linking up with Greek resistance fighters. Once they had the factory taken out, the sub would launch torpedoes at the HYDRA ships docked nearby.

Steve was called to a last-minute meeting in a borrowed tent. He hunched over an all-too-familiar sand table for forty-five minutes. The meeting ended early when a runner came to inform them that "those howling terrors" were being watched over by almost an entire brigade of MPs. Steve imagined that this was what it had been like when his mother would come to find him in the headmaster's office after he'd been caught fighting at school again.

The tent which Steve was looking for was easily identified. There were about seven armed MPs standing around, but there was also a cacophony of familiar voices shouting from inside. The sound didn't die down when Steve busted through the drab flaps. On the contrary, the volume rose even higher as his men expressed their pleasure at their captain coming to find them and busting them out (again). All six of them were released without penalty (which Steve thought was setting a bad precedent) thanks in large part to Steve's ability to schmooze, which he'd come to refine to a sharp edge during those USO tours and by observing Senator Grant.

Outside the tent, Steve cracked Dugan's and Bucky's heads together — _thanks for teaching me to control my strength, Buck_ — and said, "Try not to get court martialed before we ever complete a mission."

"It was just a bit of fun," said Falsworth. He retrieved Dugan's fallen bowler hat and handed it to its owner. "I daresay they overreacted."

"Isn't it your job to keep these guys in line when I'm busy?" Steve said to Bucky.

Preoccupied with getting his hair to slick back down, Bucky only said, "No."

"You're gonna have to promote his sorry ass to first lieutenant if you want him to do anything, Cap," said Morita. "Barnes is only here for the money."

They all laughed because there _was_ only one reason Bucky was here, and it wasn't money. Though the twenty-five dollar bump in their salaries ("hazard pay") wasn't something any of them were unhappy to be receiving.

"Gear up," said Steve. "We have to meet Howard on the airstrip."

Weighed down with their ninety-pound packs half an hour later, Steve stood before his six men and in front of their C-47. Mere hours away from their first combat jump as a team — for most of them, it would be their first combat jump with _any_ unit. They sat in a single-file line before him. Bucky was in the front, then Dugan, Morita, Jones, Dernier, and Falsworth.

It felt like a moment where Steve should say something to his men. So he tried his best to do that. "Once you board this plane, there's no going back. If you're in, you're in for the whole ride. This thing won't stop until HYDRA's gone and the Germans have surrendered. They're taking something from these people, and they don't look like they're going to be done anytime soon. I intend to stop them at any cost. I chose each of you for reasons beyond your tactical abilities. You're all — each one of you — extraordinary men. You've already survived battlefields and imprisonment. I can't begin to imagine the strength it took to endure half the things all of you have. There's no shame in backing out now. Does anyone want to change their mind?"

Steve looked each of them in the eye after he said it. Six resolute faces stared back at him.

"Then let's give 'em hell."

A chorus of "wahoo" answered him. Steve stepped forward and offered Bucky his hand. The sergeant accepted it, and Steve hauled his friend to his feet. The long barrel of his rifle nearly smacked both of them in the face.

"Did you write that beforehand?" Bucky said in a voice low enough so the others couldn't hear.

"Get on the plane, Sergeant."

"Yes, sir, Captain America." A wink. "You'll get better at 'em once you get more practice."

Why did the name always sound extra ridiculous when Bucky said it?

Steve offered a hand to Dugan next, pulling the man upright. Each tug on the arm was accompanied by firm eye contact. They reassured each other and made every man a promise without saying a word. Waddling like babies with full diapers from the weight of their gear, they made for the plane. It took a long time for them to help each other up the short ladder and into the fuselage. Once they were all in, Steve was a step away from entering when he noticed Peggy watching from across the runway. Their gazes tangled.

Something gripped Steve and he shouted across the airfield, "I'll see you soon!"

Even from a distance Steve could see the challenge in Peggy's eyes. She was definitely something else; something Steve wanted to know well enough to name.

"Don't you dare be late again!"

"Wouldn't dream of it!"

There was a round of groans from inside the C-47, and Steve didn't care one bit.

* * *

The sun had gone down but there was still some light when they made their jump from the plane. Bucky had been a little worried about the landing. Hell, he was worried about everything involved in jumping out of a moving aircraft, but he was worried about landing _in particular_ with this jump. Their DZ wasn't exactly ideal. Lamia wasn't known for its flatland.

They'd taken some fire as they came over Greece, but Stark had been able to manoeuver them around the worst of it. Only a few "harmless" holes were punched in the sides. Bucky was sure he'd never like flying. There was concentrated fire once they neared their destination. It took more nerve than Bucky knew he had to jump out of the plane and directly into enemy fire. Seeing Steve's dulled white parachute below him only made the stomach acid jump quicker up his oesophagus. A bullet tore a hole in the silk of his parachute, and the change in descent velocity was easily perceived. Bucky was already close to the ground, but there was no way he'd walk away unscathed from the impact. He yanked hard on the ropes, desperately trying to catch more air beneath the canopy despite the hole. First his ass hit the ground at a speed they'd never practised and then the butt of his Johnson caught him on the jaw. Bucky grunted from the double impact. Twisting and smashing his fist against the buckle across his chest, he shed the harness and rolled up the 'chute. He took a moment to orient himself and then trotted off the DZ (with an ass that was _already_ sore) and to their rendezvous point.

It wasn't until _after_ he met up with Steve that he threw up.

The idiot clapped a giant hand on Bucky's back and said, "Thought you'd be over this by now."

Panting, Bucky said, "Bullet got the 'chute."

Steve's hand stilled and — _damn it all to hell._ "You're alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. But just . . . just falling like that? For those few seconds — the _worst_ feeling . . ." Bucky gave up on talking and just tried to catch his breath. His jaw was aching anyway. And he was pretty sure his goddamn ass was purple.

"You'll get used to it." The attempt at returning to something regular was appreciated. "Only five more bases after this one."

Bucky groaned. "I'm going to be jumping out of aeroplanes after you for the rest of my life."

Dum Dum and Jim trotted up with their parachutes wrapped sloppily in their arms.

"Landing OK?" Steve said.

"A little more exciting than Great Dunmow," said Dum Dum.

"But OK," Jim finished for the two of them.

Steve nodded. The other two started cutting their parachutes with short field knives. The seven of them had been issued knives like that. They were stored in a slot in each of their boots. Dum Dum cut long strips. Jim cut patches. They'd been told that their 'chutes would be useless after a jump. But then Monty had had the brilliant idea to cut the parachutes up for bandages, God forbid they run out of _actual_ bandages on a single mission. The silk wasn't great for soaking up blood, but it could be made effective for tourniquets or binding up non-bleeding wounds. Bucky was sure they could think of something that would need tying up over the course of a mission. Who knew, maybe they'd need seven parachutes' worth of gags some day?

Dernier had suggested they distribute everything they could to the resistance fighters they encountered. He already planned to use the silk as fuses for his jerry-rigged explosives. Sure, good idea, but still, a lot of parachute to utilise. Bucky pretended not to know that Jim had already stolen a parachute pack from Great Dunmow and sent it home with a proposal to his girl. If he ever got home, she would be married in a wedding gown sewn from parachute silk. Bucky supposed there was romance or significance in the gesture somewhere. He just hoped Steve didn't get any ideas about parachute silk wedding dresses and Agent Carter. She'd probably knock his super soldier teeth out of his head.

The point was that if he never saw a parachute again, it wouldn't be soon enough.

Gabe, Dernier, and Monty showed up in a bunch. Bucky saw the concern on Steve's face.

"What happened?" He demanded an answer more than he asked for one.

"Frenchie's chute caught a few bullets on the way down," said Gabe. "Rough landing."

Bucky couldn't make out the dark, French mutterings but he could tell from the tone that it was filled with curses.

"He says he's fine," Gabe said. "And a few other things that don't bear repeating."

Based on the way Monty was sharing Dernier's weight, it'd been more than a little rough. This place had rocks embedded in its ground everywhere. Bucky's ass ached in sympathy, and wasn't that the strangest thing that had happened to him all week?

All conversation immediately ceased when they heard rustling in the trees behind them. All seven bent their knees, lowering themselves to the ground.

A voice barked out in what Bucky presumed was Greek.

Gabe raised his head a millimetre after a nod from Steve and called back softly, "Ιάσονας."

Three men appeared out of the darkness in phases. Steve slowly stood to his full height, the rest of them following his lead. The leader of the three Greeks broke into a smile and said with a heavy accent, "Captain America! In the flesh!"

Bucky exchanged a look with Monty. The plan was to meet up with the Greek resistance, but how could they be sure these were the right people? Gabe moved forward to stand beside Steve, offering his translation as needed. There was a little book in his hand; he hadn't had that much time to familiarise himself with the language. They'd been assured that these guys were OK with English. Bucky found that the people who said those things were almost always exaggerating. Bucky wasn't going to be useful in the communication department, that was for damn sure. He only knew a handful of Greek letters, and that was only because of school. He doubted that it would help anyone if he told them that epsilon was the symbol for engineering strain.

A few minutes passed while Steve exchanged words with one of the Greeks. The other two looked curiously at the six of them and their leader who wore a flag as a uniform. For their part, the six of them stared back just as openly. There may have been a bit of a scowl on Bucky's face. But his jaw was really starting to hurt (more than his ass), and he didn't like standing out here in the open like this. He couldn't help it if he was looking angry.

Then Steve waved a hand and they were moving out. They fell into an arrangement without even thinking about it. Steve stayed near the front with the Greek leader, the two other Greeks taking point. Gabe was close to Steve, Dum Dum behind the two of them. Jim helped Dernier along behind them. Monty offered support when needed, eyes on their flanks when it wasn't, and Bucky watched everyone's backs.

* * *

The Greeks led them to their base camp. It was a group of crumbling stone houses built in staggered rows into the side of a hill. It didn't seem like it should work in reality. Maybe a story book, but not the place where they were all living now — a place where men had red skulls and worlds warred with one another.

Rogers took Gabe and Monty with him to the Greeks' HQ. Dugan and the rest of them were led to one of the crumbling houses on the fringe of the camp and told they would be staying here for now. Dugan tossed his stuff on the floor and sat in a wooden chair. The day hadn't been particularly challenging, but travelling like this took more out of him than battle. It was funny how that worked.

Barnes handed Dernier off to Jim before he went searching through the house. He came back a minute later with a pillow and a blanket. He set it on one of the other chairs and then helped Dernier sit. Frenchie nodded his thanks and muttered some more. Jim and Barnes sat down in the remaining two chairs around the wooden table. Dugan heaved a sigh, content to be not moving. This was familiar, this sitting around. War, for all that it was, moved slowly. Until it didn't, but that was a different story. It was stationary more often than it was chaotic.

Something told Dugan that this wasn't going to be the case for long, not on Rogers's squad. _Well_ , he thought a little sheepishly, _it's not like we're making it any easier, what with that 'howling terrors' incident_.

"What do you think?" Dugan asked the room at large.

Jim shrugged. "So far, so good."

There was a kerosene lamp in the centre of the wooden table, the only thing giving light to the house. Dugan dug around in his nearest pack and pulled out a clump of bread he'd taken from the Italians. The bottle of grappa tinkled when he moved things around. _That_ was for later. The boys had to celebrate somehow. Dugan broke off a piece of the seed-crusted bread and tossed it to Dernier. He did it twice more, a piece of each of his comrades. They sat in silence and just ate for a few minutes. They chewed slow and breathed.

Barnes got up first. He pushed the chair back from the table and left through the door they came in through. Dernier got up next, dragging the pillow and blanket over to the sagging couch that was a few feet deeper into the house. Jim pulled out his pack of cigarettes and offered one to Dugan, which he accepted. The lighter slid out of the extra space in the pack, and Jim lit Dugan's before bringing the flame to his own. An S.S.R. perk: Stark designed damn-near foolproof lighters for them. Dugan sure as hell didn't miss the damp matches that never used to work which the 107th gave them.

Thinking about the 107th and the type of life he lived with them made Dugan feel nostalgic for a time that was only a few weeks gone by. The feeling made him say, "You ever think about your old unit? You were a Ranger, weren't you?"

Jim sighed and blew out a stream of smoke at the same time. "Yeah. Sometimes I miss 'em, but I don't. You know?"

Dugan did know. He knew from his father. Back at Camp McCoy, Dugan had talked about something similar with Barnes, whose father had also been a soldier. Dugan knew that men were never closer to another living person — not even their wives and children — than they were to their fellow soldiers. There was a bond forged under fire that couldn't be replicated anyway else. It didn't last. Once the battles ended, and the men who had survived returned home, the bond disintegrated. Dugan knew that seeing your war buddies after there was no more war just wasn't the same. Friendships like those were a beautiful thing that only lived when everything else was dark and ugly. Starlight that got you through the night until daybreak, until something better.

"You get a chance to talk to any of them before all this?" Dugan gestured and the smoke of his cigarette left a ghost of the motion in the air.

Jim shook his head. "Wasn't any time. Hardly had any time to write home and tell my parents what had happened. Tell 'em why I stopped writing for so long." Most of the old unit died in there anyway.

Dugan nodded. "I didn't even think to write my parents."

Jim picked at the rough surface of the table. Little fakes of wood came up under his thumbnail. "I think they got rounded up in one of those camps. They never said in their letters, but something changed."

It was suddenly difficult to look at Jim. Dugan began picking at the surface of the table, too. "Jesus."

"I was thinking about asking someone if they could get any information about my parents for me. You know, someone with connections in the S.S.R.," Jim said around his cigarette. "Thought I'd push being adjacent to Captain America as far as I can."

"Is that why you sent the parachute back home?"

Jim laughed. "Yeah, sort of. I had a girl back home."

"What?" Dugan whisper-shouted. "You didn't say anything about a girl! I thought we were friends!"

Jim didn't look the slightest bit guilty. "It's sort of a secret."

"What's her name? Damnit, you've been sitting on a cache of good stories!"

"Her name's Chiyo." Jim smiled at him. "Last I heard she was working in a factory, doing her part for the war effort." He didn't roll his eyes, but Dugan could hear it in his voice. There was no one on this earth who was as disinterested in patriotism as soldiers.

He hated to bring it up again, but Dugan said, "She didn't . . . did she?"

Jim shook his head. "Nah. Her father's white as newly fallen snow. She takes after him in looks. She was able to avoid the worst of it."

"Well, that's good."

"Yeah. Haven't heard from her since before the mission where my unit got overrun by HYDRA and I met you all."

Dugan pinched off his cigarette. "I'm sure you've got a backlog of letters from her waiting for you when we get back to base. I mean, they gotta get Captain America his fan mail. Our letters better be getting delivered with the same sense of urgency."

"I'd drink to that." Jim pulled his hands away from the table and sat back in his chair. "What about you? Who's waiting for ol' Timothy back home?"

Dugan rubbed a hand over his chest. "Oh, me? No one but my dear old mother."

They shot the breeze for a little while longer. Dugan came to realize that he didn't really know Jim that well, not outside a military point of view. They traded stories from their childhoods; Dugan's a little more dated than Jim's. Dugan talked about how he broke old Mrs. O'Malley's window playing baseball with the neighborhood kids once, and she got so mad that she tore up the vacant lot they played in. After that, Dugan would swing for her windows every time he was up to bat out of spite. Jim told Dugan about how he and his little brother, when their family lived in the rural parts outside Fresno, would lie in the middle of the road at night and look at the stars. One Independence Day, their neighbours were lighting off fireworks all night while they watched from the road. The noise must have scared the wildlife, because a skunk came streaking out of the corn fields. It sprayed Jim's brother, and he spent the next week reeking worse than anything Jim could remember. The memory still made him laugh so hard tears came to his eyes.

Jim eventually went to sleep on the floor beside Dernier and the couch. Dugan turned the lamp off and sat for a bit. He didn't feel tired enough to sleep; he'd just end up lying there with his mind racing. A particularly social being, Dugan decided to find out where Barnes went. What could he say? After two years, Dugan was used to having the guy around. (And after Krausberg, Dugan felt better having eyes on him.)

As quietly as he could, Dugan exited the front door and looked to the left and right. Instinct told him it was probably wise to go away from the rest of the houses and people. Dugan found Barnes sitting against a large rock. He was about halfway up the slope that their quarters were built into. Dugan might have missed him if he didn't catch the glow of the end of a cigarette. Strange: Barnes knew better than to light a cigarette at night when enemies were around.

"Jimmy," Dugan said. His voice carried just enough. Barnes's head jerked out of his hand. Dugan sat down beside him and plucked the cigarette out of his fingers. He hated to waste it, but Dugan ground it out in the grass. "What do you think you're doing?"

Barnes just blinked at him like he couldn't see clearly.

"You weren't asleep, were you?" said Dugan.

"No," he said while wiping his eyes.

"Maybe you should have been."

Dugan couldn't think of anything else to say, and neither, apparently, could Barnes. They sat together and didn't do anything besides think their individual thoughts. Occasionally, Barnes would wipe at his eyes and Dugan would pretend not to notice.

About ten minutes passed before Dugan said, "Let's go back."

"OK." Barnes staggered back against the rock he'd been sitting against when he stood up. Dugan arched an eyebrow. "Ass is numb," Barnes said by way of explanation.

"I don't know how you're still alive, Jimmy."

He stiff-legged it down the hill and onto the path beside Dugan. "There's no time for dying, Dum Dum. I've got shit to do."

* * *

Steve stood in front of the wooden table in their quarters, a map spread out. It was beginning to feel like his natural setting: standing in front of a map. There was enough light from the dawn that he hadn't needed to light the lamp. Steve scratched at his neck. He would have liked to sleep for another hour. He supposed he could go back to sleep after the briefing, but he already knew that he wouldn't do it. There wasn't a chance he'd be able to drop off once he sent some of his men off into the field. Still, his eyes itched and his back ached. If he was feeling the battlefield before any real battles had started, he couldn't imagine what his entirely human squad must feel like.

Steve watched them move slowly. They got up stiffly and slowly from the places they had bedded down the night before. He didn't have the heart to tell them to hurry up. Bucky had told him, during those long nights in Great Dunmow, that he shouldn't be soft on the men. To hell with that, Steve was going to run the show his own way.

Morita made his way over to the table first. He claimed one of the wooden chairs and stared bleary eyed at the map. Dugan came over next. He chose to stand. Falsworth helped Dernier over. That worried Steve. He couldn't afford to have one of the men wounded already. It simply wouldn't do. Hopefully, it was just soreness and they were taking it easy. The two of them sat in the chairs. Steve tried to smile encouraging at them without being obnoxious. Enthusiasm and soldiers had to be mixed carefully.

Bucky and Jones appeared at the same time. Jones looked downright exhausted. Guilt plucked at Steve again; he was about to send him right back into the field. Jones sat in the last chair. Bucky stood on Steve's left and rubbed at a bruise on his jaw. Because the world was not entirely different, Bucky caught Steve watching and shook his head in the way that meant _It's nothing_. The head shake in combination with the set of his shoulders confirmed that it really was nothing, but Steve made a note to give Bucky shit about the bruise anyway.

"So," Steve began, addressing everyone around the table, "the Greeks have told us that HYDRA is holed up on the top of a hill in an old castle that's surrounded by a stone wall. The Greeks used to use it as a place to store their weapons. They don't think HYDRA knows about it. So we can't just blow the place up."

"Which was your first plan of attack," Dugan said.

Steve allowed himself to smile and conceded the point. "So we want to flush HYDRA out and capture the castle without damaging it too much. The Greeks have been watching the place for a while, so they're taking Falsworth and Jones to scout the area. You're to watch their patrols and take reports from the Greeks. They have a mole in HYDRA's ranks; I guess they've been recruiting locals. The insider is going to be here," he pointed to a place west of the castle on the map, "so one of you guys needs to be there to intercept him. I've been informed that he speaks six languages and one of them is English. Jones doesn't _have_ to be the one to meet him."

"And after that?" Morita asked.

"Depending on how their defences move, we're going to have Dernier rig something up and detonate it. It'll draw the attention of the guards on the ground. Bucky will take out the watchers on the wall while the rest are distracted. I'll go over the wall and open the gates for the rest of us. The Greek resistance will be with us. They'll stay to clear the courtyard, and we'll take care of everything inside. We'll know more after you guys get eyes on the defences and talk to the guy on the inside."

Steve looked up to gauge everyone's reactions. Their eyes were on the map and they were obviously thinking hard. Morita looked up from the map first.

"Sounds good," he said.

They muttered and nodded their heads.

Steve looked at his watch and said, "Scouts are moving out in forty-five minutes. The Greeks are going to come for you, Jones, Falsworth. Get ready."

"Alright," Dugan said.

The men shifted toward their packs, exchanging few words. Bucky didn't move from Steve's side. So Steve headed outside. He walked a few paces down the path and then stopped to lean against the side of one of the stone buildings. As expected, Bucky had followed him.

"What do you think?" Steve said quietly. Something about dawn had always made Steve speak softer.

Bucky shrugged. Steve could tell that he was keeping his hands at his sides very deliberately. "Makes sense," he said. "How many are in the resistance? How much help will we be getting?"

"They've got fifty." Steve tried his hardest to keep his face neutral. There was more potential help inside the HYDRA base if they could get to them. The captured resistance fighters had been taken to work in the base just like Steve's own men had been. There were rumours about a version of the Krausberg isolation ward being present inside the castle in Lamia. Steve hadn't wanted to mention outright that confirmation of this rumour was the priority of speaking with the mole in HYDRA's ranks.

It had actually been Jones who'd suggested that they leave that rumour out of the briefing. They'd gone on to devise their plan of attack, keeping the information in mind. Falsworth had lightly suggested keeping Dernier and Bucky outside the building during the raid. Their skills were better utilized at a distance, he reasoned. Steve had agreed. But really, if the rumour was true, Steve simply didn't want Bucky in there. Withholding this kind of information was probably the exact thing Howard had warned Steve about on their flight to Italy; Steve was confusing protecting Bucky with making a poor tactical decision. Howard would say that it would be better for Bucky to know about the potential of another isolation ward so that he could better prepare himself for the reality. There was some validity to that. But, dammit, this was Steve's team and he'd call the shots however he goddamn liked. If the rumour turned out to be just a rumour, then no harm would be done.

And Falsworth was right: what good was a sniper in close quarters combat?

"How many do they think are in there?" Bucky voice interrupted the argument in Steve's head. Steve knew he had a stupid look on his face because Bucky said more slowly, "How many HYDRA troops do the Greeks think are occupying the base?"

"Uh — not too many. Maybe one hundred or so? They said some of the HYDRA people are leaving and not coming back. The Greeks think that HYDRA's trying to recruit as many people here as possible so that it can be self-sufficient and they can reallocate their resources. It's like Krausberg in that a lot of the manual labor is being done by innocent people, just a lot smaller operation. Non-HYDRA people."

Steve watched Bucky's reaction closely. He didn't give much away.

"OK. It's not bad," he finally said. "Whatever Gabe and Monty find out will help a lot." The conversation was brought to an official end when Bucky fished his cigarettes out of one the pockets of his jacket. Steve declined when Bucky offered him one; Steve already split his ration among the six of them, knowing he'd never use them. "Oh," Bucky said suddenly, pulling something else out of a different pocket and tossing it to Steve.

Steve caught it on his fingertips. It was a compass.

"Merry Christmas, Steve," Bucky said.

Steve didn't say _I already have a compass_. He thought it, though. The inside was pristine, not a speck of dirt between any of the components. The entire thing was unblemished. The US Army had issued him a compass, one of those that could hide in a zipper, and he'd been using it all during their training. His was smaller and had seen practice, but this one was definitely nicer. Steve didn't doubt that he'd favour this newer one. Hell, he already did.

"Thanks, Buck. Merry Christmas." To delay the full-fledged feeling of guilt, Steve gestured to Bucky's face and said, "Where'd you get that?"

The sergeant smirked and allowed his hand to rise and rub at the mark. "Hit myself in the face with the butt of my rifle when we were landing. I was too concerned with keeping air under the 'chute that I didn't position it the right way."

In other words, Bucky had panicked and gotten himself hurt. (Yeah, fine, a bruise didn't qualify as _hurt_ , but it _was_ something.) Understandable. Especially when Steve took into account how much Bucky seemed to hate these jumps. But everyone knew the jumpy man wasn't the one you wanted on your squad. You want the man that kept his head. Steve was OK saying that whatever had happened last night when they jumped didn't count.

"Guess there's no good way to land with a rifle that big," Steve said.

Bucky nodded and blew cigarette smoke away from Steve. They both watched it swirl and blend until it was no longer discernible. Bucky said, "You remember the last time I was home for Christmas?"

"Yeah." The whole block must have heard the yelling coming from Mr. and Mrs. Barnes' apartment.

Bucky threw his cigarette down with more force than was necessary. He grounded it into the dirt with his boot. "Things have gotten better," Bucky said. "Old man was right."

A lot of things bubbled up in Steve's throat, but he didn't allow himself to say any of them.

Bucky didn't stay on the topic for long anyway. "Hey, did you, uh . . . did you get a chance to see any of my sisters? Or my ma? You know, before you shipped out? I just . . . haven't heard from any of them in a while, with Krausberg and all that."

It took a lot out of Steve not to be hurt by how hesitantly Bucky asked. It was like he was asking a stranger — like they hadn't known each other for twenty years. Steve was left to wonder if the changes in Bucky or the changes in himself had caused this altered dynamic. He _hated_ it.

"Actually, yeah," Steve said. There was that guilt again. How had Steve forgotten? "Before they did the, ah, before the procedure, I had a three-day furlough." The words _to say good-bye to everyone in case the serum killed me_ hung in the air. Steve didn't dare say them but he could tell Bucky had picked up the meaning. Steve continued, "And I went to see your family. They were doing really good, Buck. They missed you, but they were doing OK. I couldn't tell any of them what unit I got into or anything that was going on. Becca didn't believe that I'd gotten into the Army. She thought I'd bought the uniform somewhere and I was trying to pull a fast one on them."

It felt good to see Bucky crack a small smile. Steve didn't feel so blocky and like he didn't belong next to this person he'd known since he was seven.

"Yeah, I bet she thought you were full of it," Bucky said.

It wasn't long after that when the rest of the men joined them outside. The Greeks came to pick up Jones and Falsworth. Steve and the others mingled with the other Greek resistance fighters, talking weapons and tanks and trading stories. Greece hadn't gotten a lot exposure to the rise of Captain America, and Steve had a hell of time trying to explain the redacted version of his creation. The Greeks thought the whole thing was hilarious. The rest of Steve's men found out that Steve had done movies, something Steve had been very deliberately failed to mention. Bucky hadn't said anything when the films got brought up but his eyes downright _glittered_ — it was terrifying.

Their conversations with the Greeks were only half-intelligible due to the language barrier. That didn't stop their communication. If anything, it made it more enjoyable. Dernier was particularly good at getting his points across; he used a lot gestures that involved swinging his arms around. The Greeks seemed to enjoy it.

Their fraternisation was interrupted by the sounds of an engine rumbling through the air. Dugan spotted the plane first and apparently recognised the model as unfriendly just by the way it sounded. He threw his arms out to knock down anyone within the radius and shouted, "It's German — get down!"

The first detonation split the air just then. Steve copied Dugan and used his body and shield to cover those around him from the bombing. The plane was deafening as it flew overhead, little pings of punctuation from machine guns on board. The Greeks scrambled around doubled up on themselves. Someone got to the antiaircraft guns. If they got a hit, it wasn't enough to knock the plane out of the sky.

After it passed the camp, it kept going. Steve looked up over his arm to track the plane's progress. To his surprise it didn't turn around and come back for another pass. It kept heading north — north to the HYDRA facility. It dropped another round of heavy explosives around the stone walls of the base. The plane was able to turn itself around over the base, but it didn't get much further. A shock of blue launched itself from the walls of the HYDRA camp, striking the wing of the bomber. The plane caught fire and left a toxic cloud across the sky as it made its descent. There was a mechanical crunch and the ground shook; the smoking debris gouged a trench down the side of a hill before coming to rest in the space between the Greeks' base and HYDRA's.

Steve stayed where he was for the length of a few breaths. The people around him did the same, slowly pushing themselves up with wary eyes. When he got to his feet, Steve took inventory of his surroundings. All his men were unharmed, and no one was screaming in pain. He hoped that meant that no one had been hit and not that someone was already too dead to scream. Dernier looked a little stiff, but Steve chalked that up to the rough landing from last night. He hoped this was the same case for Jones and Falsworth — no injuries, no exploded plans.

Steve motioned his remaining men together.

Dugan was arranging his bowler hat. "Not going to get used to the Germans fighting HYDRA no matter how many times I see it."

Steve nodded even though he hadn't seen the things that Dugan and the others had. He hadn't seen for himself this sort of thing before. Dugan had. Bucky had. So had Jones. They saw HYDRA turn on the Germans, and the next thing they knew, they were in a forced-labour camp. Jesus.

"We going after the wreckage?" Morita asked.

"That's exactly what I was thinking," said Steve. "Let's gather intelligence before HYDRA does." Seven minutes later, they had all their supplies and weapons. Steve put on his helmet and snapped it securely in place. He took his shield off his back and had it ready on his arm. "I'll take point. Dugan take the rear. Stay back, Buck, and make sure we have a clear field."

Dugan shouted 'ha' more than he laughed. Slapping a hand on Bucky's back, he said, "Ain't this the life, Sarge?" Bucky scowled like his life depended on it.

* * *

The one thing Jim noticed as they trekked from the Greeks' camp to the wreckage of the German bomber was that there were _a lot_ of wrecked German planes around here. Something told him that most of these skeletons were here because of HYDRA. Interesting: Was HYDRA's biggest opponent right now the Germans? Did that make the _Wehrmacht_ their ally? If the Germans were fighting HYDRA on top of a two-front battle, how much longer could they keep fighting? Did they have the manpower to keep this up?

Yeah, no wonder HYDRA was recruiting the Greeks. At this rate of fighting, all the Germans would be dead in a few years. They couldn't fight the Allies on the west, the Soviets on the east, and themselves all at the same time. Jim's stomach stirred; he almost felt bad for them. A lot of those Germans were just kids. He'd seen it firsthand. _The world is horrible and complex, and I never asked for this_ , Jim thought. And the rumours they heard about things in the Pacific theatre of war . . . It was a bloodbath over there. The islands must make everything look worse, the idea of paradise a foil to the carnage and brutality of the fighting over there. Rumours were rumours, but Jim hadn't seen or heard anything about the European theatre that compared to what news trickled over from the Pacific. And he _really_ didn't know how he felt about that.

Jim really hoped his little brother hadn't tried to enlist. He really hoped his brother had done something that took him away from those awful camps. The thought of his little brother and his parents, who would suffer and not say a single word about it — the thought of them behind a barbed wire fence filled Jim with irrational rage. It was all the more complicated that the rage was for the very country he was fighting for right now.

He couldn't think about this now. Thoughts like this made being a soldier unbearable. Jim wished he could shake his head and all of these things would drain out of his ears and not complicate things anymore. His boots were so much heavier when he thought about German kids, Pacific islands, and concentration camps.

 _Boom!_

Jim's steps faltered only a little bit. He saw a body fall down the slope at the base of the HYDRA camp; Barnes's handiwork. Seemed a bit early to give away his presence and position, but that wasn't Jim's area of expertise. He didn't know shit about anything but the radio. Or that's what he tried to convince himself of.

Cap had shifted his shield up at the sound of the gunshot. He looked back now to the place where Barnes had bedded down. Jim knew that he probably went for one of the other aeroplane skeletons. There was wreckage _everywhere_. This place was a mechanical graveyard — thank God Stark wasn't here to see it. The guy would be going nuts. Anyway, Jim knew Barnes enough to know that the guy went for the place with the best view and most cover. Field of view was more important to Barnes than cover; anyone who was anyone knew that. Jim had learned it in those birdcages back in Krausberg, and he had never talked directly to Barnes at the time. You knew it just by watching him.

Jim could remember in excruciating detail how Barnes went to that private's aid when the guards were beating the life out of the kid. Dying of pneumonia, Barnes had launched himself into the middle of that fight and saved that private's life — took out three guards, too, before it was over. Granted, he'd only managed to save the kid because the guards had decided to beat him to within an inch of his life instead (which, to be honest, wasn't too many inches at the time). Zola had stopped it, and then he took Barnes away.

So anyway, Barnes was a bit of a self-sacrificing, overprotective, reckless, stupid, annoying, bossy, admirable son of a bitch.

There was the crack of his rifle two more times, and two more bodies rolled down the slope toward the very plane the four of them were headed toward. Jim's hands tightened on his M3. He wanted to get a shot off. Why did the snipers get to have all the fun?

They made it to the plane without taking any fire; Barnes got all the HYDRA troops before they could fire a single round. Cap put up his fist and then lowered his hand. They all stopped and lowered to a crouch. Behind him, Dugan was on one knee and sweeping the trail they had just travelled. The downed plane was only ten meters away. Frenchie looked over to Jim and raised his eyebrows. Jim shrugged.

Cap had his eyes on the plane, watching and listening for any signs of life. He must not have heard anything, because he turned, pointed to Jim, and gestured for him to follow. Still in a crouch, Jim approached the plane behind the captain. The plane was smoking but there were no obvious, open flames. It occurred to him that there might be explosions possible in metal bird. But if Cap said it was safe to approach, Jim was going to believe him.

The nose had been sheared off by the rocky hills as the plane slid down the slope. Half of a body was situated in the pilot's seat. Jim wondered where his legs had gone and then tried to forget the thought. There was still a hat and sunglasses on the pilot, both of which were undamaged. Rogers slid inside the plane (somehow; he was so big) through the damage in the front. Jim followed him through the hole. Rogers bent over the pilot, perhaps checking if the pilot was still alive. Jim stood back to back with him, M3 up and aimed at bowels of the plane they had yet to see. He thought he saw at least three more destroyed bodies back there.

"Anybody want a Luger?" said Cap.

Jim turned to see the Cap crouched down beside the half-destroyed controls with a leather holster in his hands. The captain nodded and held it out to Jim. He took it.

"Thanks." He'd been after a good keepsake. Jim had planned on sending something good home to his parents and his brother. And to Chiyo.

"Don't thank me," Cap said. "Thank Gerry."

"There's one thing the Krauts are good for," said Jim. He shoved the Luger and its holster into his jacket. "Christmas."

The pilot was missing his hat and sunglasses when Jim looked back to thank the body. Cap nodded to the rest of the plane, and Jim led the way into the fuselage. The bomb bay doors had been lost somewhere along the way. Dirt, mud, and rocks had littered the inside and made it look like the plane had been here for much longer than it actually had been. Four bodies littered the fuselage in varying states of deconstruction. Jim stared down at the body of a machine gunner whose chest still expanded. It was only by millimetres but it was enough to notice. Half the guy's brains were exposed; Jim didn't know how it was possible that his lungs still spasmed.

Jim pulled out his Colt revolver from its holster and shot the body's exposed brains. There was a horrible gurgling rasp and then, blessedly, nothing. He could feel the captain looking at him, but Jim didn't look back. Holstering his sidearm, he knelt down and plucked the decorations off the body's uniform.

"All clear," the captain called for the benefit of Dugan and Dernier. The other two entered by way of the missing door in the side of the fuselage. Cap said, "Look for anything you can. Papers probably got all burned away, but keep your eyes open for anything that the brass could get some intelligence from."

* * *

Gabe walked back into camp with Monty and their Greek escorts around 1700 hours. He'd been on his feet for long hours before, but they'd never ached quite like they did right now. Almost two months away from the battlefield had made him so soft. Gabe had worked hard since he was nine years old, when he'd gotten his first job doing mechanical repairs (only requirement for the job: small hands) on a nearby farm. It had been an uphill battle every day since then. He wouldn't give up his education for a job, no matter how much the family needed money. If that made him selfish, Gabe was prepared to accept that. His family had seen hard and lean times; he'd simply banked on the family's ability to continue to persevere.

Hey, it turned out that a war was enough to interrupt his pursuit of education. Gabe didn't try to think so much about why that happened.

He and Monty sought out Captain Rogers on their return. They found him outside their quarters examining a map. They approached and saluted him. Rogers echoed the motion and they stood at rest.

"How'd it go?" he said.

"Pretty good. Not too much excitement," said Monty. He was, of course, referring to the bombing.

"We're all fine," Gabe said. The captain really should work on not being so expressive. At least not in combat zones. "Got a lot to report."

He handed over his notes and the hand-drawn map of the castle the Greeks had given them. Rogers accepted them and looked them over immediately.

"And those rumours turned out to be true, according to our underground friend," Monty said lowly.

The captain kept his eyes on the notes and said, "That complicates things."

"If I may," said Gabe, "I think the plan should still work. There're seventy-three Germans in the facility and twenty-one Greek recruits. The prisoner-workers number in the forties, including those, um, not doing manual labour."

"In other words, it's not as bad as we thought," said Monty.

Captain Rogers looked up and between the two of them. There was a wrinkle between his eyebrows. Gabe thought his nose made him look like a bird, and he didn't know why that thought occurred to him. "What do we expect from the recruits? Are they loyal to HYDRA? Will they fight against us?"

"I'm not sure they'd fight us," Gabe said. "But I don't think they'd help us much. If it was an option, I'm willing to bet that they'd take the cyanide way out."

The captain nodded. Gabe didn't think he looked very satisfied with the answer. Monty exchanged a look with Gabe; they were thinking the same things.

Rogers finally said, "Do we know exactly what they're doing inside? With such a small number, they can't be doing anything too big. And they're in a castle. It's not like they have the best equipment in there."

"There's definitely no forging going on in there."

Monty said, "From what we gather, they're assembling a lot of small parts and testing. Then the parts are shipped to somewhere else. There was, er, a rather lot of evidence suggesting whatever they are building is being tested on the Greek prisoners."

"What do you think?" the captain said.

Monty straightened his spine. "I think they are trying to change their weapons. The ones that shoot blue light and disappear people. Perhaps they want powerful weapons that will wound and incapacitate, not kill."

"And they're testing this on the prisoners."

"It is only a theory, Captain."

The map in the captain's lap snapped when he folded it. Gabe had to work to keep his face impassive. Rogers stood up and said, "We'll find out if you're right soon enough."

* * *

Monty escorted both Bucky and Dernier to their positions around the base's walls early the next morning.

"This is the best position around the whole base," Monty told Bucky and gestured to a tree. Then he left to show Dernier to his place, where the explosives he'd spent all night making would be detonated.

So Bucky climbed up the tree, the barrel of his rifle bouncing off his back the whole time. He was feeling acutely irritated this morning. So much so that he was annoyed further when something good happened. Not that there was anything good about this mission aside from the fact that none of them were dead yet.

The tree had no good places for sitting _of course_ , so he arranged himself as best he could while keeping the rifle steady. It was a little before dawn — the first bomb would detonate _at_ dawn. Bucky shook back the sleeve of his jacket to look at his watch. The light was almost non-existent, but he was able to make out the time when he squinted. It would be just as useless, but Bucky peered through the scope of the rifle Stark had modified for him. You'd think making a semi-automatic rifle into a bolt-action one wouldn't be making it any better, but, how Stark explained it, the modification had been necessary in order to accommodate all the other changes he had deemed more important. There had been something about reducing the muzzle flash and sound of firing the rifle. Bucky would have preferred the automation, but he'd been firing that old Springfield since his boots hit the sands in Africa. He could deal with a bolt-action rifle.

Anyway, he looked through the scope and up to the walls. There were shadowy figures moving around on the wall. These wouldn't be easy shots to make. Who ever heard of a sniper making shots from below? Bucky let it bother him, welcomed the irritation, revelled in it. Maybe he'd get a reputation of being the guy who killed from below instead of above.

 _Yeah, right_.

He watched the shadows through his scope for a while, tracked their movements. There were five of them that Bucky was confident he could get before they realised what was happening. Steve would climb the wall — _the ten-foot sheer wall_ — in a section where two men did rounds. Whether they were within his range or not, Bucky was going to hit those bastards. He could see the shape of those packs that powered the blue-light guns on their backs. Yeah, today was not the day that they would see Steve and His Ridiculous Shield vs. Horrifying Blue Light Guns. Not if Bucky had anything to say about it.

The first bomb detonated eleven minutes later. Bucky flattened himself to the branch he was clinging to and lined up his sights with the first guard standing atop Steve's section of the wall. Deep breath in — hold it — let it out slow . . . and squeeze the trigger. The second detonation covered the sound of the shot. Bucky had the second guard pinned before the shouts within the walls had died down. With Steve's section clear, Bucky adjusted himself and cleared the guards on the walls around the detonation sites. He didn't pause until he had to load a new clip, and after that, he went right back to mowing down anything that moved on top of the wall. . . . Could have done it faster if his rifle wasn't bolt-action.

He didn't notice any movement on Steve's section of the wall until it had been breached and the Greeks were streaming in through the gate. Realistically, his job was over. They got in. The fighters would clear the ground inside the walls. Steve and the others would take the inside of the base. So, effectively, Bucky's job was done here.

Then again, he'd always jumped at any chance to work overtime back home. So he sat up on the branch and looked up at the branches above him. Bucky hadn't brought his Thompson, and the Johnson would be next to useless in close combat. His hand fell onto his Colt without needing to be told to. If he just got in, he could scavenge something from the . . . he could find a more suitable weapon once he got inside.

Bucky hung his Johnson by the strap in the tree and dropped to the ground. Pulling his Colt from its holster, he ran for the gate, integrating seamlessly into the stream of Greeks. Immediately upon entering the gates, the man in front of Bucky disappeared in a flash of blue light. Bucky's boots became tangled and he crashed down in the place where a body should have fallen. Another flash of blue went over his head, annihilating something — some _one_ — else. The shots came from above, from the walls — the walls that he was supposed to have cleared. It felt as if his tongue was suddenly too big for his mouth; it was making it hard to breathe. Bucky threw his left hand out to recover his Colt. Rolling over, he put the gun in his right hand and took a single shot, aimed at the wall.

He hit his target. The guard dropped to his knees before falling forward. Part of his body dangled off the edge. Bucky swallowed around his tongue, which was shrinking back to its regular size. Pushing himself to his feet, he dodged around bullets, most of them enemy but a few were friendly, and made it inside the stone castle. HYDRA's modification and additions to the place were easy to spot. Metal fixtures had been driven deep into the stone. There were doors with no rusted hinges and cracks in the stone that were too predictable.

The halls were surprisingly quiet. The shouting from the battle outside hardly carried into the stone halls. Bucky heard his breath rasping and echoing as he moved down the halls. He'd been so stupid; the Colt was still his only weapon. He ought to have brought the Johnson just to have something. It was huge. He could have used it like a club, if need be. Because swinging a rifle around like a baseball bat would definitely stop those blue guns from atomising him.

The rattle of a machine gun sounded deeper within the castle. That was Gabe — Bucky knew the sound of that gun anywhere. It fired continuously for six seconds. He moved faster toward the sound. There were shouts coming from the same direction, but they weren't distinct enough for him to make out any words. His hand was sweating and the Colt was starting to get slick.

There was a T-intersection coming up and it was only by pure chance that Bucky heard the footfalls before he entered the crossway. Instead, he threw his back against the side of the hallway which he knew the person headed his way wouldn't be able to see. Sinking to a knee, Bucky held his sidearm steady. The person was running, the sounds growing louder as he breathed in deeply and held the it. He let it out slowly, already beginning to squeeze the trigger —

The person reached the intersection and Bucky saw nothing but the stupid bowler hat on his head. He jerked his arm up as quickly as he could. The shot fired and smashed into the wall. The bullet fractured and the pieces fell harmlessly to the ground.

"Jesus!" Dum Dum shouted. He spun on his toes. There was only a little bit of surprise when he saw Bucky crouched along the wall. "What the fuck are you doing in here?"

Bucky rose to his feet. "I thought you could use the help."

"You're supposed to be outside. You almost shot me."

 _Yeah, well, I missed, didn't I?_

"Now I'm here. Come on, I want to help. Lead the way."

He could see the brief battle on Dum Dum's face. There wasn't a lot of time for deliberation — another round of echoing gunshots slammed into them — so he started running again, and Bucky followed him. Maybe it was the constant sound of their pounding footsteps, but Bucky thought he was breathing a lot easier and his hand wasn't sweating as much. There were no rasping breaths filling up his ears like cotton.

They reached a staircase (metal and winding: placed recently by HYDRA), and Bucky put a hand out to stop Dum Dum from entering the well. Instead, he stepped out onto the top stair and fired two shots straight upward. There was a thud followed by several smaller ones. A black-clad body came to rest a few steps up from where he stood. Bucky looked at Dum Dum, smirking.

"Just move," he said, punching Bucky's shoulder. "Down."

So down they went. Bucky took the lead though he didn't know exactly where they were headed. All he knew was that he wanted to travel in the direction of Gabe's machine gun. Dum Dum fired back up the staircase several times, hitting three guards. Bucky shot anyone that was headed up toward them. By the time Dum Dum jerked him back up two steps to enter the landing they were looking for, he had only reloaded his Colt once.

They hadn't gone three meters down the hall before Bucky heard particularly heavy footsteps down the corridor. He dug his fingers into the back of Dum Dum's field jacket and pulled him down to the ground. Both of their bodies made _smack_ ing sounds when they hit the damp stone floor, but the noise was covered up by the discharge of one of those damn blue light guns. This one was practically a cannon. Its barrel was the size of a mortar tube, and the person wielding it clearly struggled to hold it level with his hip. There was no way they were going to get around this guy. There were no doors, nowhere to hide unless they got around him. Bucky shot a few useless rounds at the HYDRA operative. The bullets pinged harmlessly off his armour. There was a click — it seemed louder than it had any right to be — and then a whine as the cannon began to charge up and engage. Futilely, Bucky tried to shield Dum Dum with his body.

He heard something cutting the air — it didn't sound like the discharge of the weapon — and looked up. A loud, metal clang filled the hallway. Bucky's teeth were vibrating. It wasn't until the cannon-wielder collapsed that he realised what was going on. The man dressed an American flag helped clear things up, too. Steve caught his shield midstride (show-off) and slammed it down on its edge against the cannon's barrel. Bucky peeled himself away from Dum Dum. The two of them stood on shaking legs.

Dum Dum pushed his shoulder. "I don't need you lying on me, Sarge. Thanks though."

"Yeah?" Bucky wiped his hair out of his eyes. Why was he sweating so much?

"The hell are you doing in here?" Steve yelled.

"I came to help." Bucky shrugged and tried to look calm and innocent.

"You were supposed to stay outside."

Was Steve actually _mad_?

Machine gun fire interrupted whatever else Steve was going to say. Dum Dum took off down the hall and Bucky went with him before Steve could say anything. They ran into a chamber that had vaulted ceilings and was filled with smoke. Steve shoved the two of them aside once they made it through the doors; bullets immediately _ping_ ed off his shield, which he held aloft. He saved them a few pints of blood in that single gesture. Bucky wasn't going to thank him for it yet. He crawled along the wall, away from the heavy fire. There were overturned metal tables scattered around the room. He took shelter behind one and checked his ammunition. Was there really not a single gun lying around that he could take up?

Bucky put a hand flat on the ground, bracing himself to fire around the edge of the table, but he paused. Broken glass bit at the skin of his palm. He lifted his hand to stare at the blood beading along the tear in his skin. His eyes travelled to the glass, and suddenly, the gunshots and noise were very far away. No sound or sight could penetrate the concentration he had on the blood oozing out of his hand. Not until a bullet punched its way through the metal table he was hiding behind. It missed him, but he let his eyes travel to where the bullet had embedded itself. Instead of Bucky's back, the bullet had burrowed into a pale, naked body that was lying limply against the wall. He could see the track marks on the body's arms and on its neck. It had no hair on its head. The eyes were open and unseeing. The mouth was open, dry but for a little residual blood. There were burns all along the arms and legs, some of them deep enough to expose that which was below the layers of skin.

The silence in his head became one long, high pitched screech. His vision tinted red. Bucky gripped his Colt tight, turned, and stood up from behind the metal table. He fired unblinkingly into the fray. Bucky hardly registered Monty knocking him to the ground or Steve screaming his lungs out at him. He didn't remember how the battle ended. All he could think about were naked bodies with track marks and burns.

* * *

Three days later, Captain America and his "howling terrors" were packed away in the tight spaces of a British-made submarine. Howard Stark had had something to do with the design of this one. Steve hated being on the thing. It was so small and narrow. He was sure the place would be uncomfortable even if he hadn't gotten so huge. It was good news when Howard told him that they'd only be aboard for a few days. Steve wasn't sure how long he could take hunching over everywhere he went. Not that the sub allowed for much movement.

They were docking at the same base that they had taken off from in the C-47 five days ago. It felt like they had been in Greece for longer than five days. It also felt like it couldn't possibly had been as long as five _whole_ days. Steve supposed he shouldn't be surprised. War did a funny thing to a person's perception of time. The battles went on for lifetimes; the changes happened so fast.

Steve sat back from the table and ersatz coffee. Peggy was across from him. Patience radiated out of her eyes. She was the one he'd been debriefed by. It was a good thing no one oversaw or otherwise monitored those meetings; it had gone on rather longer than any mission debriefing ought to. Peggy tightened her lips and sat up straighter. Steve's eyes jumped to her.

"Everything went fine," she assured him. "I can't image why you're acting like this. Did something happen? Did you see something?" Questions that could still sound like part of a debriefing if you didn't know any better.

Something _had_ happened. Steve just didn't know what it had been. He didn't know how to describe it — so he'd decided not to mention it up until now. On the other side of the sub's abysmal "mess", Steve's very own "howling terrors" were gathered around their own table. It was much more noisy and crowded than Steve and Peggy's. They were sharing whatever remained of Dugan's grappa and watching Jones and Dernier play cards. Monty was telling a story which got interrupted frequently (they were calling him out on his lies). Steve stared at the way Bucky was slumped against Dugan's shoulder. There was _something_ stirring in Steve's gut, but he didn't know what it was. Like he was willfully ignoring something bad. There was sourness much like guilt in there somewhere, too.

The night after they'd taken back the castle and helped the Greeks set up defences (because there _would_ be a counterattack on HYDRA's part), Steve had tracked Bucky down and really tore into him. It was the first time that Steve could ever remember seeing Bucky pay attention to his lectures. These new lungs did allow Steve to shout better; he'd done a lot of shouting. At the end of it, he'd given Bucky the sunglasses he'd taken off the dead German pilot. The lenses had a mirror finish, so when Bucky put them on, Steve's own reflection had stared back at him, furious and worried.

Bucky was wearing those sunglasses now as he slept against Dugan's shoulder. _Guilt and sourness and something bad._ Steve looked at Peggy and smiled.

* * *

 **Note: I'm a big fan of Bucky complaining a lot.**

 **tbc**


	4. Approaching the Winter Line

Steve Rogers was a conundrum. Under normal circumstances, this would be reason enough for Peggy to hound his every step. But she simply couldn't do that. To hound Steve Rogers and figure him out could ruin everything. Peggy was having a hard enough time trying to figure out what she felt about him. Whenever bombs would drop somewhere beyond the safe borders of their newly-erected Italian base, she would see Steve Rogers look to his men — to Sergeant Barnes — to ensure that all was well. The fact that danger was several miles away seemed to make no difference to him.

Peggy didn't like that Steve did that, and she was confident that she knew why.

But the first afternoon on their base in Sicily, while Peggy and Howard were briefing the team on the expected topography around Naples and the Gustav line, they heard unfriendly weapons firing far too close. Hurried boots and shouts pounded outside their tent. As one, the team rose and went to the exit. About a second after Falsworth left the tent, the thing collapsed, shredded, from whizzing shrapnel.

"Insurgents," Dernier said.

Friendly and enemy fire; it was close. Automatic, fast bursts of rounds. The last, wet scream issued from a private's cut throat steps behind them. Peggy spun, sidearm rising, to eliminate the threat. She saw the private fall, looked into the whites of three black-clad enemies' eyes, and found herself pinned to the ground under an immoveable body.

Three quick, clean shots from a Colt overhead. Three bodies collapsed beside where Peggy lay.

"You did not do this _again!_ " Peggy said, shoving at Steve's body, which still pinned her to the ground. "I had them!"

Another something exploded, something _big_ , close enough for them to feel the wave of heat and expanding air. Peggy was getting to her feet when the same controlled Colt fired off two more rounds.

"They're down!" called a voice nearer the big explosion.

It had been Barnes's Colt. She watched him lower the sidearm calm as can be. In the back side of her mind, she filed away the approximate range of the last two shots, factored in all the moving people and obstacles in the way. It was a long, impossible shot from a sidearm on a crowded base.

 _Marksman indeed_ , she thought.

Steve stood sheepishly off to the side, looking at neither his men nor Peggy.

Calm spread through the base slowly, the tide coming in.

"Agent Carter," Phillips's voice barked. She turned toward the call. "With me."

She nodded curtly to the team, ignored Steve, and followed the colonel away. He flipped an order over his shoulder to the men: "Go secure our perimeter, damn it."

Peggy didn't want to be protected. She didn't need it; she was more than capable of taking care of herself. But Steve Rogers . . . Peggy didn't pine. She had to fight tooth and nail for every inch she'd progressed in this career. If she started making eyes at Captain America, what would happen then? Would they laugh at her? Would they say the woman was looking for a husband the whole time? The worst question: Would she become nothing more than Captain America's girl, relegated to some sideshow, not even a sidekick?

Sergeant Barnes seemed to be handling the shift of his position relative to Steve well. Peggy couldn't help but feel envious of Sergeant Barnes. He had been willing to become anything — _a sidekick_ — as long as he could stay at Steve Rogers's side. Sergeant Barnes had been at Steve's side since they were children, Peggy reminded herself. (Something told her that it may have been Steve who was at Sergeant Barnes's side back then, not that it mattered.) It was different for him to change for Steve. Peggy would not be changing in the same ways Sergeant Barnes had already chosen to change (or perhaps had change thrust upon him).

Peggy had to swallow down the revulsion she felt about that question. She'd hate for the first question anyone asked her to be about her husband. (Not that she was thinking about _marriage_ and Steve at the same time.) She was her own person, whole and complicated. Peggy had stories to tell and adventures yet to be had.

She was young still. Her opinions and convictions could change. Maybe she'd be satisfied being the foundation for somebody else's stories in the future. Maybe she could be a wife and a mother and be content with that. As it was, Peggy wasn't that woman today. She didn't want anyone to be protecting her _right now_. She wanted someone to think her an asset during a mission, not some love interest that motivated the hero, a liability to be guarded. Peggy wanted to be the hero, too.

It was because of all those tangled feelings and more that Peggy didn't allow anything to happen between herself and Steve. Now wasn't the time for these types of things anyway. There was a war going on and missions to plan. They both had things bigger than themselves on which to focus. For now, they were just two people on the same team. Peggy thought that was the best way for her and Steve to be — for now.

Steve's interest in her was obvious. Hers wasn't, but it did still exist. So Peggy watched Steve Rogers and tried to figure out if he was the type of person who would leave her where she would be "safe" during a mission, or if he would want her right there beside him because he valued her abilities. Really, she could see him going either way. And the way Steve acted toward Sergeant Barnes didn't help her predict the outcome at all. Peggy had been hoping that observing them would enlighten her. But there was no cracking the code of those two — not unless Peggy enlisted the help of Howard Stark. She had simply ended up more unsure of Steve Rogers.

If there was a balance to be had between emotion and logic during times of war, Peggy hadn't found it yet.

* * *

Surprisingly, the team didn't cause an uproar celebrating the New Year. The calendar flipped, and 1943 became 1944 while the six of them were sound asleep. Steve doubted any of them had even been paying the date any mind. They'd only just arrived back in Allied territory, been released from the suffocating confines of the submarine, and dealt with an invasion into their supposed safe base when the year ticked higher. Steve hadn't really noticed the significance until he'd turned up bleary eyed and hungry at S.S.R. HQ the next morning and Peggy greeted him with a light, "Happy New Year, Captain."

So it was back to sand tables and maps. The next base would be the one in Northern Italy. Intelligence reports told them that the base was in the area of Novara. There weren't a lot of resistance fighters with which they could team up. The base was closer to the German border, thus they had better defences having been set up so much longer. It would require them busting through both the Gustav Line (with support) and later through the Gothic Line (in all likelihood, completely unsupported). If it was anything like Krausberg, they'd never be able to drop the seven of them safely at the base via combat jump. They'd be ribbons by the time they reached the ground.

 _Gory, gory, what a helluva way to die_ …

That left them with only one real option: The seven of them would troop up Italy and take the base mostly on foot. They destroy the base (no historical landmarks to preserve), clear the surrounding area, and signal for Howard to come get them. Exactly _how_ Howard was to come get them was up in the air. Steve supposed that was up to the inventor to figure out. A voice in Steve's head that sounded suspiciously like Bucky kept saying that the team would end up having to clear an area big enough for Howard to land a plane safely. Which probably wasn't easy to do up in the hills of Northern Italy.

Granted that they ever made it that far _into_ Italy. Two so-far impenetrable lines of German defences stood between them and the HYDRA base. Two lines of which they knew, though Steve was privately coming to trust the S.S.R.'s intel. Who knew what other strongholds would be in their way though. Who knew what strife there was between HYDRA and the Axis powers along the way…

Around 1500 on New Year's Day, Steve was cramming his mouth with something unnamed that he'd stolen from the mess. His meeting had adjourned for the day, and he shuffled along until he found Bucky stretched out in patch of sunlight by the barracks.

"Hey," Steve said. If his ma were there, she'd whack him for talking with his mouth full.

Bucky kept his eyes closed and sighed through his nose. "Are you going to court martial me now that we're back on base?"

Steve sat on the ground beside his friend, eating like it was going out of style. "No. But I should. You can't just ignore my orders like that, Buck."

"You don't have to do the lecture again."

"I believe you were the one who was telling me that war wasn't a back alley."

Bucky groaned.

"And I have to be able to trust you. Trust is what makes us team, what makes us an army and not a bunch of guys with guns. You know who told me that?"

Bucky groaned louder.

Steve suppressed his smile and continued on, " _You_ told me that. I have to be able to trust that you'll follow my orders. If _you_ don't, why would any of the other guys? I can't have my second-in-command questioning me. It undermines the whole point. The NCOs are what hold a unit together. I need you on my side."

Bucky was groaning so loud by now that people were starting to stop and stare.

"Question me when you think I'm making a bad call, but don't do it in front of the guys. If you wanted to raid the base back there, you should have just told me." Not that Steve would have agreed to it. "We're a team, Buck. I need you to trust my judgement, and I need to trust that you have my back."

"Ugh. Jesus, Steve. I heard you when you shouted all this back in Greece. The whole damn country heard you. HYDRA heard you." Bucky cracked just one of his eyes opened to peer at Steve. "And I get it."

"So you won't do anything like that again?"

A pause. "I didn't say that."

Steve slapped Bucky's stomach — Bucky jackknifed with impressive speed — and said, "Jerk."

"We're OK?" Bucky said.

Steve nodded and shoved the last piece of his pilfered meal into his mouth. "Yeah. We're OK."

They shook hands.

"You free for the day?" Bucky said. He was shielding his eyes with one hand, glancing up at Steve.

"Yep."

"Think you can get us a ride to the nearest town?" He sat up. Steve saw the cogs turning in Bucky's head.

"What did you have in mind?"

He shrugged. "Nothin' big. Tomorrow's Monty _and_ Dernier's birthday. Was gonna see what I could get my hands on."

"Yeah!" Steve shouted. The people who had stopped to watch Bucky moan hadn't moved yet and jumped when Steve shouted. He lowered his voice to say, "Yeah, of course. We have to do something."

"We have to do _two_ somethings."

Steve got to his feet and hauled Bucky up, too, even though he hadn't asked for help. "Then let's get going."

Twenty minutes later, they'd secured transport but were arguing. Steve had found a motorcycle they could take to the village. Bucky was refusing to sit in the sidecar.

"I found it," Steve said. "I get to drive it."

Bucky shook his head. He was wearing the sunglasses from Greece. "I'm better at driving than you are."

"I won't fit in the sidecar. Not anymore."

"Come on, Steve. After everything I've done for you, you're gonna make me sit in the sidecar?"

Steve was having a hard time holding back his laughter. "I thought you did all those things for me because we were friends. I didn't realize you were keeping score."

Bucky said, "I did — I wasn't!"

"Then sit in the sidecar, Buck."

"Jesus Christ."

Even over the snarling of the motor, Steve could hear Bucky mumbling and grumbling the whole way to town. When they finally reached civilisation and hid the motorcycle where no one would see it, Bucky was still going on and on. Apparently, Steve owed Bucky something really huge.

 _Duh_ , Steve thought. He had owed Bucky since he was seven years old.

"But, really," Bucky was saying, "I have to go to war, become a prisoner, get pneumonia, get strapped to that _table_ , then you bust in and _you're taller than me_ — can't get a broad to look at me for a second and then I'm jumping out of aeroplanes. Now I'm riding in fuckin' sidecars."

Steve clapped a hand on Bucky's shoulder. "Big trees sure do fall hard."

The local Italians recognised Steve a lot more than the Greeks did. So it wasn't really a problem to obtain anything they wanted. Children followed after them. Steve's face got hotter and hotter as the day went on, embarrassed to be receiving so much attention. He'd gotten almost used to it on the USO tour. This was somehow different; he couldn't say how. Bucky put on a good face during all of it, but Steve could tell that his friend wasn't appreciating the crowd. Almost made him jumpy, especially the kids shouting.

A group of teenaged girls approached them and started speaking in fluttered Italian. Steve tried not to look nervous as he waited for them to do something he could react to. Bucky disappeared from Steve's side. Thanks to his new height, Steve was able to track that familiar head of dark hair into a shop that seemed to specialise in cheese.

It took three minutes for Steve to politely shake the girls and escape into the confines of another shop. A bell tinkled when he walked in. The place was empty except for the forty-something woman behind the counter. Based on the smell of the place, Steve decided it was a confectionery. And based on the look of it, the war effort had hit them hard. The shelves were mostly bare; there weren't enough raw materials for them to make large quantities. Flour, sugar, eggs, milk, _everything_ was rationed.

Steve approached the woman at the counter. "Hello."

She bowed her head a few degrees. " _Ciao_."

Steve communicated with the woman mostly through hand gestures and smiles. She knew a little English, and he knew less Italian. Most of Steve's Italian vocabulary he had learned from his neighbours as a kid and saying any of it now would only get him a slap across the face and likely thrown out of the shop. He picked out an indulgent amount of sweets (relatively speaking, the selection was greatly reduced from what it used to be, he imagined). She tried to hand the wrapped packages over to him for free; the woman recognised him as Captain America and went on about something in Italian. Steve flatly refused to take it without paying. In fact, he made sure to pay double what he thought it should cost. If Steve ever came back to this place, he hoped it would be stocked wall-to-wall with product. The world could use more confectioneries.

It had started to rain a little bit out on the streets. The people hurried out of the wetness, minor as it was. So it was easy to spot Bucky and make it back to the motorcycle without encountering any of Captain America's admirers. There was less grumbling from Bucky on the way back to base this time, but the sour-looking duck face was out in full force. It was still funny.

"Hey, where ya been?" Dugan called to them after they'd returned to base and hid the motorcycle away.

"To town," said Bucky. "You get your mission done?"

Steve didn't like the smile on Dugan's face. He disliked the glimmer in Bucky's eyes even more.

"Oh, yeah. Barely had to walk half a mile."

"Good," said Bucky. He gestured with the packages in his arms. "I got everything. Jim gonna be able to get us in?"

Steve felt very much like an outsider in this conversation. One thing he was sure of was that it had been naïve of him to think they'd make it through New Year's Day without a commotion.

Dugan nodded. "Looks like it. Gabe pulled through, too. In case you couldn't get eggs."

Bucky nodded his head. "I _did_ get eggs. But we can think of something to do with his, don't you think?"

Dugan's moustache was positively quivering. "Definitely."

Bucky turned to Steve and said, "I would thank you for the ride, but I think we're both better off never mentioning it again."

Steve smirked and said, "Follow my orders and then I'll agree never to mention it."

"You're a punk, Steve Rogers."

Bucky and Dugan started to walk in the direction Dugan had come from and the image was so familiar that Steve felt frozen. They were planning some trouble for Dernier and Falsworth's birthday, and Steve wasn't in on it for a reason. It was strange to see Bucky planning some trouble and Steve not being a part of it. Steve couldn't remember the last time something like that had happened. He felt a little left out and _maybe_ a little jealous of Dugan. This was Italy; this was war. From what Steve gathered, Bucky and Dugan were the best of war buddies. They had stories of their own — Bucky had stories that didn't feature Steve. Just like Steve had stories of Camp Lehigh that didn't feature Bucky.

Jeez, Steve was too young to be waxing nostalgic. War was here, and they weren't in Brooklyn. They weren't Steve 'n Bucky anymore, no matter how hard both of them pretended otherwise.

* * *

Jim picked the lock to the mess. Dum Dum ran at a crouch through the open door, and Bucky followed behind him. Jim closed the door behind them and Dum Dum locked it again from the inside. They moved in silence through the darkened mess hall, their movements like that of a well-oiled machine, a perfectly trained team.

Until Dum Dum tripped going over the counter to get to the kitchen. Bucky had to bite his lip to keep from laughing.

"Keep your trap shut, Jimmy," Dum Dum hissed.

His ribs felt ready to bust. He took a large, slow breath to relieve the pressure. Bucky made it into the kitchen without tripping over anything. He left his packages on the counter. Dum Dum pulled a bundle of stiff and scratchy canvas out of his pack and jumped back over the counter. He hung the canvas over the windows and then returned to the kitchen.

"Light," he said. Dum Dum unclipped his flashlight from his vest and turned it on. The thing smelled like melting plastic when left on too long, but it would get the job done.

Bucky rummaged around in the cupboards and pulled out two metal bowls. "Good to go?" he said.

"Yes, Sergeant." Dum Dum shined the flashlight directly into his eyes.

Bucky threw up his hand to block it. "Cut it out, jackass. Help me."

Dum Dum came to stand next to him and shine the light down at the scrap of paper on which Gabe had written instructions. Bucky sorted the packages into two piles based on what the paper said.

"Can't be that complicated," Dum Dum said. "I mean, Gabe said he'd been making it since he was eight. If an eight-year old can do it, so can you, Barnes."

It took actual work for Bucky not to roll his eyes. "Thanks, pal." He pushed one of the piles of packages over to Dum Dum. "You do dry, I'll do wet."

It was a miracle, sometime later, when they were standing before two mostly uniform cakes. The smaller one was for taste testing; it was Dum Dum's idea. Bucky had agreed. Gabe had gotten them extra eggs (the hardest ingredient to get their hands on), and they had to make sure the cake was good, right? Gabe was also the one who gave them the recipe. Bucky had to collect the ingredients in town. Dum Dum made whatever crème was supposed to go with the cake. The original recipe called for strawberries, but where would they get strawberries in Italy in January? Chocolate cake had been their first choice (Dernier's favourite), but, yeah right. They weren't going to get cocoa powder out here.

So they'd been in the mess for nearly two hours, and now they were sitting on the floor of the kitchen, backs against the serving counter, and eating cake with their hands. The larger cake was still cooling off; Dum Dum's not-strawberry crème was in one of the metal bowls. Bucky broke off a piece of the small cake and shoved it in his mouth.

"I'm so hungry all the time," he said with his mouth full. Even without the crème, the cake was moist. He had to find out where Gabe's family learned to make unbelievable cakes.

"We're all hungry all the time," Dum Dum said. There were crumbs in his moustache.

"I mean, the intensity of my hunger is greater than what it used to be." It would be perfect if Bucky could have some milk. With this cake — _perfection_. "Fucking annoying."

"You can't catch a break, Sarge."

"Tell me about it." Bucky held up a piece of cake and said, "Happy New Year, Dum Dum."

Dum Dum touched his own chunk of cake against Bucky's. "Happy New Year, Jimmy."

They were quiet for a few moments, mouths full of cake. It was damn good. Bucky thought about his past New Year's Days. Almost all of the ones he could remember featured Steve in some way, shape, or form. A lot of those days were spent in Steve's stuffy bedroom; winter was always hardest on his immune system. Bucky didn't think there was ever any cake involved.

"We should do this again next year," Bucky said to Dum Dum. "Make it a tradition. New Year's cake."

Dum Dum put his hand out. "It's a deal."

Bucky shook it.

* * *

After all their meetings with intelligence at S.S.R. HQ and more weapons practice with Stark, the six of them went to the tent Jim had reserved. Barnes and Dum Dum split off to retrieve the cake they'd made last night. Jim got everyone seated in the tent, got the projector, and made sure the audio was adjusted just so.

"What film is this?" Monty asked for the fourth time. He was being really sore about them making a fuss about his birthday. Jim wished he'd be more like Dernier and enjoy it. Hell, Frenchie was still wearing the ridiculous hat Dum Dum had made for him.

"Oh, don't worry about that," Jim said. "You'll like it. I put in a request to HQ for it while we were still in the field in Greece. I couldn't wait and risk it not getting here in time."

"You've been planning this for far too long," Monty mumbled.

Sure that the equipment was set up the right way, Jim sat in one of the seats clumped together around the projection screen. "Now, make sure you all thank Agent Carter. We wouldn't have been able to get ahold of these films without her help."

There was a dark look on the Englishman's face. Betrayed by his own countrywoman.

"The hell are Barnes and Dugan?" Gabe said.

"Speak of the devil!" Dum Dum's voice boomed from the flap of the tent. The sheet cake in his hands was huge. Whatever they'd covered it in looked sweet and fatty and delicious. Dum Dum stood before Monty and Frenchie and tilted the cake so they could read the message written in crème ('Happy Birthday, you fucking bastards!'). Barnes stood at Dum Dum's shoulder wearing the smuggest smile Jim had ever seen.

"Aha!" Frenchie shouted. He jumped to his feet like he was a cartoon, the stupid hat defying gravity and staying perfectly in place. Somehow, he managed to hug Dum Dum and kiss both of his cheeks without smashing the cake between them. Barnes received the same treatment, though it was a little more awkward because he kept trying to get away from the affectionate Frenchman.

" _Merci!_ " he shouted over and over.

Amused. It was a level of enthusiasm Jim could never manage even if his life depended on it.

"I'm not going to kiss you," Monty said once Frenchie had settled down with a finger full of frosting.

"Ungrateful Limey," Dum Dum said to Barnes.

"You're telling me."

They put the cake on an empty chair. Dum Dum said, "So me and Jimmy made this cake out of Jones's recipe. We don't have plates; we don't have shit." Barnes pulled his field knife from his boot and handed it to Dum Dum, who continued, "We have a knife that's been strapped to Jimmy's foot. Eat with your hands like men. Monty, Frenchie — happy birthday. You're crazy, you're not American, which we all know you'd very much like to be" — this was met with boos — "but you're great men, and I love you like family."

Jim shouted his agreement with Gabe and Barnes.

"Let's eat," Gabe said for all of them.

Dum Dum cut the cake with Barnes's shoe-knife and distributed the chunks. They ate with their hands like savages. Jim set the projector to working before he got his hands covered in frosting and whatever the mystery crème was. (It was damn good, that's what it was.) There was a round of roaring approval from Frenchie and Monty when they saw that their entertainment for the night was none other than a film starring their own CO, _Captain America: Defender of Freedom!_ There was an exclamation point in the title and everything.

"This is the most incredible sponge I've ever had," Monty said between bites of cake. The accent made him seem more ridiculous than anyone else who was eating cake from the palm of their hand. "It shouldn't be allowed to exist at the same time as a war. It's too good and _pure_ perfection."

"Gabe's fault."

"My grandmother's been making the recipe since before I remember," Gabe said. "This doesn't taste exactly like hers, but it's not bad either."

"Hear that, Dum Dum?" Barnes said. "Gabe thinks we're not bad."

"High praise."

The film was half over when the tent flap fluttered opened and the light from outside washed out the picture. The six of them all turned in their seats to stare at the two latecomers, frosting sticky on their fingers. Captain America was staring at them with a strange look on his face. A little behind him, Jim saw Agent Carter looking a little bit smug in that Limey way Monty put on when he wanted to seem intimidating.

"Come grab a seat, you two!" Gabe called.

Frenchie cheered, "We have cake!"

"We've cut it with a knife we found in a boot," Monty said mildly.

"Yeah, close the flap," said Dum Dum impatiently.

"We're trying to watch a movie here," Barnes said.

The two of them entered properly, flap closing and restoring enough darkness for the movie to reappear on the screen.

"Oh, no," Cap said when he saw the images. Jim could see the dawning horror. "How did you get this?"

The six of them pointed in unison to Agent Carter. It was spooky. Cap looked downright betrayed.

Agent Carter gave him a tight smile. "Well, they deserved it, didn't they?"

For his part, Steve was a good sport about it. Even when Barnes flicked frosting at the back of his head when the Captain America on-screen did something Barnes considered stupid. (It was a miracle that a food fight didn't break out.) Agent Carter sat among them like family. Jim was surprised to see her accept a chunk cake and eat it out of her hand just like the rest of them. He didn't know why he was surprised. You'd think he'd be so used to her surprising him that it wouldn't surprise him when he was surprised anymore. (Yeesh, Jim's head hurt when he thought about it.) Just like in the field, Jim thought he functioned better when he didn't think about things too hard.

After the film ended, Jim put on the next one ( _Captain America: On Foreign Shores!_ ). Somehow — none of them were sure how — they demolished the cake. It had been huge; none of them had thought they would actually finish it. Oh, how they had underestimated themselves. Especially once Gabe started passing around the hooch. It wasn't even the standard gut-rot Jim had been accustomed to out in the field with the Rangers. It was nice to have a good time like this. With their luck, they'd be in the field for every holiday and the rest of their birthdays.

A soldier takes what he can get when he can get it.

"I'm almost afraid to ask how you got the cake," Agent Carter said after they'd cleared the tray.

"Then don't ask," Dum Dum said with a wink.

She smiled at him without curling her lips upward, somehow. "I shall defer to your expert opinion then."

When the film ended, they didn't have a third. So they sat around, leaned against one another, and talked. They just talked, the eight of them. Shooting the breeze like they'd done it for years and years.

* * *

05 January 1944: Mail caught up to them in Sicily. There was a literal sack of letters for Steve. A burlap sack full of little kids' shaky handwriting. There were a few letters from dames, which the guys got a kick out of reading. There were so many; Steve would never notice if some never made it to him. Besides, there were photographs.

There was a handful of correspondence which was addressed to the rest of them: one for Jim, three for Gabe, two for Dum Dum, seven for Monty, three for Dernier, and one for Bucky. Also among the stack was a letter addressed to Steve Rogers (as opposed to the burlap sack addressed to Captain America). Bucky recognized the handwriting as his mother's. It made his face twitch when he handed it over to Steve and his Father Christmas-sized sack of letters.

The guys went back to their shared tent and read their letters aloud, sharing the affection enclosed from those back home. Bucky felt like he was filled with hot soup while they read.

On 07 January 1944, the howling terrors and their captain were packed up and shipped into Italy as far north as they safely could (not very far: Salerno). Their ship stopped in the sea, and Bucky could already feel the ground shaking from phantom artillery. Back in mainland Italy. Again. Back to fighting futilely up the Boot-in-the-Sea. The plan was shit; he'd told Steve that. Been there, done that. It drove Bucky nuts when he saw that knowing look in Steve's eye. As if Steve knew the electricity that buzzed behind Bucky's eyes when he thought about marching north through Italy again. North, and the destination was another HYDRA factory.

(He must have walked right past their current mission on his last march…)

Bucky's hands shook on the rope ladder down the ship's portside. Waves not the only cause of his stomach folding itself up into a neat knot. Dum Dum helpfully put himself between Bucky and the rest of the guys. They were shuttled to shore via Higgins boat, disguised by all the other English troopers. Jim had been armed with a camera and took annoying photographs of everyone.

They infested a crummy Covenanter Mrk III and rode that thing until its tracks were ready to fall off in Naples. No tank battle threatened them.

Eventually, they were given transport (a jeep), and Dum Dum drove them northeast. Toward the mountains and the Volturno River. The terrain might have been easier if they'd taken a path up the coast. No, it _definitely_ would have been easier. Their route took them through the central Apennines, where the Germans or HYDRA or whoever-the-fuck would have the high ground with months to fortify their positions. They were going through _mountains_ in _January_ with no tactical advantage.

Phillips and them could bleat all they wanted about "do not engage" and "just blow by anyone you have to," but Bucky knew even a team as small as theirs wasn't going to go through seven lines of heavily fortified defences undetected. Not with a goddamn American flag leading them, a literal target on his arm.

Officially, the _regular_ Allied powers were preparing for a large-ish invasion on Anzio. The Howlers were to make a report via radio to S.S.R. on what sort of resistance they encountered on their way north. Bucky would be surprised if they made it that far and were still able to give a report. There was a lot of shit between the Naples jump-off point and Anzio. And if things went wrong — which they _always_ did — they wouldn't be passing anywhere fucking _near_ Anzio.

It was a shit plan.

But, it was almost too easy to move through the mid-parts of the country. They ran out of fuel for the jeep long before they encountered any real resistance. Gabe and Monty took turns manning the machine gun mounted on the jeep. Dum Dum would switch off driving with Dernier — of all people, he should not have chosen Dernier to switch with. With the lack of fuel, the guys spent the better part of a day disassembling the jeep and stripping it of all its useful parts. This wasn't part of the S.S.R.'s plan, but fuck 'em. Dernier could make something really useful out of these parts, and it might just save their lives.

So they went on foot to the banks of the Volturno River and into the jaws of the defence line. A few miles upstream of the main bridge, they stopped and hunkered down. A few moments were spared to see if regular patrols were made here. Nothing but the wind, cold water, and reeds.

Monty tied a complicated knot around the hilt of a metal stake, and handed it off to Steve. Checking that no one was around their swath of bank, Steve stepped back, breathed deep, and pitched the stake across the river like a javelin. The seven of them stood there stupidly watching the coil of rope disappear meters at a time until _thump_.

"It landed," Steve announced.

"With plenty of rope to spare," Monty said dryly. He held up the remaining rope, half a meter left to slack.

"Boats," Dum Dum said, and two of Stark's latest instant-inflate boats bloomed in the tall grasses.

Steve, Frenchie, and Jim went across first. Three pairs of hands holding the rope and dragging their tiny boat through the water. Bucky didn't watch. He laid in the tall grass with his Johnson rifle, watching their surrounds through the scope. Special attention was paid to the bridge he could just make out with the aid of the telescopic lens.

The call of a bird not normally found in these parts echoed over the river. Bucky, Dum Dum, Gabe, and Monty crammed in together in the remaining boat. Monty held the loose end of the rope still. The other three pulled on the taut end. Bucky could feel pull from the other end; Steve reeling them in faster than they could pull themselves.

Once they were all on the same side of the river, Gabe reversed a valve on the boats. They deflated at half the speed that they'd filled up. Folded and rolled up sloppily in Monty's pack, Dum Dum said, "They never fold up the second time like they originally are."

"Let's keep moving," was all Steve said.

Feet numb and frost from the reeds still damp on his jacket, Bucky kept moving.

The lack of resistance put everyone on edge, Bucky more than anyone. Imagined scenes like the one he'd seen in Azzano played in his head: German bodies evaporated by HYDRA. As they walked, Bucky let his hearing stretch and extend as far as possible (never mind that Steve could probably hear a lot farther…). Every crunch of snow, every creature slinking through the trees plucked at his nerves. The rustle of his own bandoliers made his breath catch, convinced one of the blue-light guns was charging.

In fact, he'd just stopped short, thinking he'd heard it again, when Steve's voice said, low and harsh, "Get down!"

The seven of them dropped to the ground in a single heartbeat. Gunfire was hot above their heads from seemingly every direction. They'd walked dead into a trap. Relief that it was bullets and not blue light bled out of Bucky's tensed spine. Looking up, his mouth full of leaves and debris, he saw Steve had already whipped up his shield and was charging forward _toward_ the firing.

"Get your ass back here, you fucking nut!" Bucky shouted. Dum Dum was pulling on the back of Bucky's jacket, forcing him in the opposite direction Steve had just run off in. Another set of hands pulled at Bucky's jacket.

"Quit shouting, Barnes," said Monty. "Move! That's it! Away from the bullets — where you won't die."

The two of them each kept a hand tight on Bucky's jacket even though he was going with them toward a dip in the ground covered by a felled, damp tree. It was all the cover that was available. The fire died down as they went (goddamn it, Steve). All six of them made it without leaving a red trail. It took all of seven seconds of eye contact for them to agree on how to proceed. Gabe hefted his Browning to his hip and fired back at the Germans, orthogonal to where Steve had run off. It gave them a safe point on which to fall back.

Bucky's hands weren't listening to him, making it unnecessarily difficult to bring his Thompson to bear. The sound of Steve's stupid shield ringing off of metal kept echoing in Bucky's head. He heard screams and snaps that must have been imagined, because he was nowhere near the men being bludgeoned with Steve's shield.

Under Gabe's suppressing fire, they surged forward. Leaves and mud jumped in fright around their footsteps. _They're in the trees_.

A metallic, sliding _ping_ — not a bullet, Bucky knew — and Frenchie's voice, "Sticky grenade!"

On his peripheral, Bucky saw the tarred ball fling into a tree ahead to their right. He imagined a _fwap_ of the grenade sticking. A short delay, and then the tree jumped apart with human screams.

Bucky tried not to waste ammunition by firing like a maniac. That was what Gabe was for. So he shot only when he saw something to shoot. The trees, suspicious snow-covered lumps, too-perfect dips in the terrain. Keeping it to short bursts of fire from the Thompson, the forest was a panoply of painful song. He moved forward until there were no more targets. The others had moved forward in a fanned formation, making sure there was no one behind them, and they wouldn't get fully surrounded. Every step of the way, he felt himself stretching away from himself, as if he were going somewhere outside his body.

Bucky stepped into a foxhole and brought the butt of the Thompson down on the helmet there. The head hissed, and a face looked up. Crinkly eyes; he was probably someone's grandfather. Smoother than he thought he was capable, Bucky swiped the bayonet from the German's hand, reversed the direction of the swipe, and opened the old man's throat. Red poured, but Bucky was already moving on.

He tossed the Thompson into his left hand. Not breaking stride, something made him pull his Colt with his right and shoot a pile of stiff snow three meters away. It didn't make a sound, but the "snow" turned red.

Distantly, Bucky thought he'd like to come back for the ghillie suit. The stained fabric could be replaced.

The whole way through, he kept an ear trained on the sound of Steve's shield cutting the air and hitting soft, human bodies. He hardly heard anyone calling out "grenade!" or "get down!" — Bucky just fired at things that moved and kept his progress, not stopping. Nothing but the shield and his own heartbeat filled his ears. He didn't panic. He hardly had to think when to duck and slide. Sometimes he'd roll once or twice on the ground to avoid incoming rounds, but he was back on his feet before his momentum ever gave out.

His rhythm was interrupted when a bullet yanked on his shoulder, pulling up the threads of his jacket. There was no burn of pain so he kept moving. The contact seemed to reignite his senses and make him crash back into his head. No longer on autopilot, watching from above, he ran closer to the ground and swung his Thompson left and right. There was a heavy sound, like so many bodies — Bucky unhooked a grenade, pulled the pin, flipped the spoon, and threw the grenade in the direction he'd sensed the people, all without breaking stride.

"Look out!" That was Dum Dum's voice.

Bucky tried to ignore the advice, tried to quiet his suddenly-loud breathing and get back into that free-flow focus. About two seconds later, though, an enormous explosion threw half the goddamn ground into the air. The concussion shoved Bucky face-first into the ground. Bullets immediately began biting at the ground around him. He'd be Swiss cheese in sec—

The sound of rain on a tin roof and then an arm hooked around Bucky's waist and pulled. The momentum carried him, log-rolling, a meter away. It stopped when he fell onto his back in a foxhole.

 _Graceful, Barnes. Really smooth._

"You OK?" Steve was shouting at him. That had to be bullets pinging off his shield.

"I'm fine," Bucky said hoarsely.

But then Steve was up and running back into the bullets. Bucky's body wouldn't listen to him when he told it to follow. His lips and tongue couldn't form the words he wanted to shout. They felt swollen between his teeth, too big to articulate words. The air around him felt wrong, as if it weren't even touching him. Bucky felt like he was leaving his body behind again. But it felt different. His mind was going somewhere his body and consciousness couldn't follow. It was the strangest feeling, building up to _something_.

There was Frenchie's voice in his ear; louder than all the guns though Bucky still couldn't understand the words. The feeling like he was being stretched like taffy and then—

Bucky blinked and the battle was over. It was quiet. It was so, so quiet. He was on his knees behind the branches of a newly fallen tree. The voices of his friends were calm, the only sounds. Two people were staring at him: Steve and Frenchie. In his hands was his Thompson. He was holding it wrong; both hands were on the barrel. There was heat there, under his hands. It was burning the flesh of his palms. The gun had been firing not so long ago.

"We gonna get going or what?" Dum Dum's distant voice said. It sounded forced.

Bucky looked toward the sound. The Earth felt very uneven, like it was balanced on a pin.

Steve sank to one knee. He was so _close_ ; it would upset the delicate balance of the world and send them hurtling into space, untethered. "Buck?"

Bucky had to clear his throat before the words would come out: "Yeah, Steve?"

"You ready to go?"

His eyes roved over Frenchie behind Steve's hulking frame. Bucky would let his eyes look at anything as long as it wasn't Steve's dirty face and earnest eyes. Were there cuts and bruises under that dirt? Was there some infection swimming and unfurling in those wounds? The world stopped wobbling and balanced, solid. Bucky's eyes fell back on Steve. Just like after another alley fight in the old days. (Except too different to ever be like that again.)

"Yes, Captain. Of course."

Steve nodded his head once and pulled Bucky to his feet. He didn't stumble. He felt solid. They got into formation, Bucky and Monty in the middle, and moved out. Heading: north. There was a lot of time for Bucky to wonder: _What the hell just happened?_

There was no way he'd ever ask.

* * *

 **NOTE: With this edited version, I'm going for more detail, action, and "team bonding" junk. Lemme know what you'd like to see/read, or if you like what's already here. But allow me some freedom here. I'm trying to fit TFA into a semi-accurate historical timeline without making this a history lesson.**

 **I'm assuming that the Azzano mentioned in TFA was fictional and in mid- to southern Italy, and not any of the places in Northern Italy that contain "Azzano" in their titles.**

 **And I couldn't help being heavy-handed with foreshadowing while they're crossing the Winter Line. I mean, c'mon. The G.D. iWinter/i Line.**

 **tbc**


End file.
